Description: Volume 7 of the Presidential Series presents documents written during the final sessions of the First Congress, a period of intense activity for Washington and his administration. Between December 1790 and March 1791, Congress passed legislation that established a national bank and a federal excise, dramatically increased the size of the army, and provided for the admission of Vermont to the Union. Filling the offices created by these and other acts occupied much of Washington's attention; the excise service alone was one of the largest bureaucracies created during the Early Republic. The Indian war on the northwest frontier continued to be a major concern. Washington received news of Josiah Harmar's defeat on the frontier shortly after arriving in Philadelphia in December and spent the succeeding months planning a larger military expedition for 1791. Washington also devoted a large part of his time to the new Federal City on the Potomac. He announced the location of the federal district, dispatched Andrew Ellicott and Pierre L'Enfant to lay out the city, and engaged in negotiations with local property owners for the necessary land. All of these activities were set against a background of increasing partisan division within the government, brought into high relief in February 1791 by the controversy over the bill to incorporate the Bank of the United States. This volume includes written opinions on the bill's constitutionality prepared for Washington by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph (Randolph's opinion is published here for the first time). The volume closes on 21 March 1791, the day Washington left Philadelphia on the first leg of his triumphal Southern Tour.

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