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ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Autograph Letter Signed, as Secretary of the Treasury, to Samuel Otis, [Philadelphia] January 24, 1795. 1 pp., 7¾ x 8 ½ in.
Inventory #22607 $8,500
Just one week before resigning his post as Treasury Secretary, Hamilton asks Samuel Otis, the Clerk of the Senate, to return a copy of his final report on the financing of Revolutionary War-era public debt.
Complete Transcript
Docketing on verso:
“Secretary Hamilton Jany 24 1795”
Address leaf:
“Mr. Otis,
Cch. of the Senate
Body:
Presuming that the Senate has not ordered it to be printed--if Mr. Otis can spare me till Monday my late Report to the Senate it will oblige me
A Hamilton
Jan 24, 1795
He will please send it to my house Corner of 10th Street.”
Historical Background
On January 20, 1795, Hamilton submitted his final report to the Senate regarding the public debt. In addition to summarizing efforts to date, Hamilton offered a detailed plan to retire the remaining $76 million dollars of public debt. Among his suggestions were ways of raising revenue, details of the efforts to service the interest on the debt, and his proposed plan to continue paying down deficits to ensure the United States’ good credit rating. Aside from his resignation, this was his last official act.
Hamilton served as Treasury Secretary from 1789 to 1795, and although he resigned his post, he continued to advise Washington through letters. After he resigned, he returned to practicing law in New York City, but re-entered public life in 1798 as a Major General preparing a force to fight against France in the in the Quasi War. Diplomacy averted any real fighting.
Samuel Otis (1740-1814) from a prominent Massachusetts political family, Otis served as Massachusetts state representative, 1784-1787, and became Secretary of the Senate in 1789. In that position, he held the Bible upon which Washington took his oath of office. He served in that position until his death.
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804). American statesman. Born on the island of Nevis, in 1777, Hamilton became Washington’s aide-de-camp. After the war he studied law and became one of the most eminent lawyers in New York. In 1782 he was returned to Congress. In 1786, Hamilton took the leading part in the convention at Annapolis, which prepared the way for the great Constitutional Convention that met at Philadelphia in 1787. In the same year, he conceived the series of essays afterward collected as The Federalist, and wrote 51 of the 85 works himself. Upon the establishment of the new government in 1789, Hamilton was appointed Secretary of the Treasury and restored the country’s finances to a firm footing. In 1795 he resigned his office, but remained the actual leader of the Federalist Party until his death in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. He was at the forefront of political strife between the Federalists and the newly-formed Democratic-Republicans in 1801.
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