Acts Passed at a Congress

Acts Passed at a Congress of the
United States of America, Begun and
Held at the City of New-York . . . .
New York: F. Childs and J. Swaine,
printers to the United States, 1789
Law Library (92.3) ( November 21, 2002 )

Content

The first session of the First Congress met at New York from March 4 to September 29, 1789. It established procedures for dealing with the President, passed laws establishing the executive departments (State, War, Treasury) and the federal judiciary, and set the tariff on imports, which supplied most of the revenue of the federal government. The major objection to the new Constitution had been the absence of a Bill of Rights, and only after both houses of Congress approved the Bill of Rights on September 25 did the last two holdout states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, agree to join the Union. This copy bears George Washington's signature on the title page and includes the texts of laws, appropriations and the proposed amendments to the Constitution that formed the Bill of Rights.