To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 12 March 1793
From Alexander Hamilton
Treasury Departmt 12th Mar: 1793.
Sir,
By an Act entitled “an Act providing for the payment of the first installment, due on a Loan made of the Bank of the U. States”1—the President of the United States is authorised & empowered to apply two hundred thousand Dollars of the money which may have been borrowed, in pursuance of the 4th section of the Act entitled, “an Act making provision for the reduction of the public debt,” in payment of the first installment due to the Bank of the United States, upon a Loan made of the said bank, in pursuance of the eleventh section of the Act for incorporating the subscribers to the said Bank.2
As the installment above alluded to has been due for some time, I have to request your authority to issue a Warrant for the payment thereof, agreeably to the provision of the Law.3 I have the honor to be &c.
Alex: Hamilton
Secy of the Treasury
LB, DLC:GW.
1. This act, approved 2 Mar. 1793, is in 338.
2. Section 4 of “An Act Making Provision for the Reduction of the Public Debt,” 12 Aug. 1790, authorized the president to borrow up to two million dollars and apply the money toward the U.S. debt (ibid., 187). Section 11 of “An Act to Incorporate the Subscribers to the Bank of the United States,” 25 Feb. 1791, called upon the federal government, with the president’s approval, to use this two million dollars to purchase stock in the Bank of the United States (ibid., 196). On this date Hamilton also sought advice from Attorney General Edmund Randolph on the legality of this purchase, but no reply from Randolph has been identified (Hamilton Papers, 14:196–97).
3. Hamilton believed that payment to the Bank of the United States had been due on 1 Jan. 1793 (Hamilton to the President and Directors of the Bank of the United States, 1 Jan. 1793, ibid., 13:437). GW replied to Hamilton on 13 Mar.: “In compliance with an Act passed during the last Session of Congress entitled, ‘an Act providing for the payment of the first installment due on a loan made of the Bank of the United States,’ I hereby desire that you will cause the payment of the first instalment to be made conformably to the said Act” (LB, DLC:GW).