of the two sets of instructions was subjected to thorough and repeated revisions, in all the mazy details of its miscellaneous, and in many instances seemingly heterogeneous contents, noting at every moment whatever susceptibility the different items possessed of being grouped under general heads, according to their respective affinities-more or less obscure in some instances, and latent or difficult of detection in others—until at length the most isolated and dubious gradually assumed, with the rest, their appropriate places, in juxtaposition with their nearest of kind, under their proper chapters, sections, and classes, which respectively had, in the same process, somewhat more readily taken their range of precedence or sequence, according to their more obvious and natural order of development. Thus, the classification which I ultimately, after great labor and intense scrutiny, succeeded in producing, gradually emerged out of the chaos of documents, which had never been framed with any view to method, and had fallen into a state of still more hopeless confusion: and this was the fourth process-the intricacies and difficulties of which, alone, can hardly be estimated, even by the seemingly apt comparison of it to an attempt to re-produce the several orders of Grecian architecture by collecting and arranging their minute fragments from ancient ruins; simply because the existing models of those orders would afford a guide to the proper and scientific disposition of their respective fragments; whereas, in the present case, instead of having any model for a guide, the whole classification of this Synopsis had to be constructed according to the indications of the analysis of the parts, as developed step by step simultaneously with the examination and disposition of the materials of which it is composed.

2. Upon a final survey of the classified Synopsis of Treasury Instructions thus produced, it was perceived that it afforded an authentic history, to a considerable extent, of the transactions of the Treasury, connected and continuous, without stop or interruption, under the respective heads or divisions to which they were assigned; and that the inquirer for specific information would, with the aid of the alphabet of references to the detailed objects it embraces, not only be introduced to the particular object of his search, but be thrown into the entire group of kindred subjects acted on through the long series of years from the beginning of the Government to the present time; and that, by the analogy of the parts of such group, he would often derive more information than he was in uest of, which not unfrequently would serve him a better purpose than the isolated object of his original inquiry. Also, it was manifest that by this classification the most insignificant item of incidental ex parte instruction would acquire a consequence from the company it is grouped with, receiving and imparting illustration, in a greater or less degree, not unfrequently conflicting and contradictory, indeed, whereby a question of right decision would necessarily arise between the items so at issue, which would rarely be suspected to exist between them, viewed separately and alone; but the authority of either, under such isolated view, would most commonly be taken as a fair representation of the law in the case. So that, by thus confronting antagonistical decisions and instructions in the contrast of close proximity, issued at however distant periods, and by whatever high authority, the observing mind becomes more and more impressed with the fallibility of official instructions and decisions for the administration of the laws, whether from oversight or misconstruction, on hasty emergencies, or otherwise; but which nevertheless become, in practice, paramount to the laws, in such cases, instead of doing their legitimate purpose of executing them.

Under this view of intimate connection and virtual identity between the laws and the instructions in execution of them, one could not fail to appreciate the importance of the official notices of the Revenue laws transmitted to Revenue officers, and of the commentaries thereon in the circular instructions accompanying them. Accordingly, it became a paramount subject of inquiry: first, whether the LIST of laws, as derived from the official notices in the circulars, was a full enumeration, giving an adequate idea of the vast extent of those laws? Secondly, whether the INSTRUCTIONS could be considered as a fair and perfect mirror of the entire Revenue laws? either of which inquiries would be answered in the affirmative, if such list were complete, and the instructions were without oversights or misconstructions. But, upon a strict examination, great omissions were discovered in the enumeration made of those laws from the official notices; and, in many instances, no commentary or instruction was given in the circulars accompanying those actually transmitted, however occasionally supplied or not, under emergency afterwards; all of which urged the indispensable necessity of producing a complete list or catalogue of the Revenue laws, carefully compiled from the entire code, with an

alphabetical index of the subjects in detail, to serve as a ready reference, in making comparison with the details of Treasury instructions in execution of the same, by which, alone, the completeness or deficiency of the executive MIRROR of those laws might be as nearly estimated as possible. And, to this list, which was substituted for the defective one, derived from both sets of circulars, was prefixed a REVIEW of the promulgation of the laws in general, and of the Revenue laws to Revenue Officers in particular, as a summary of pertinent information respecting the practical facilities afforded for securing the faithful observance and execution of the laws, general and special.

In surveying the said complete list, it may appear to some to have been unduly extended, in embracing the acts making provision for carrying into effect the Treaties and Conventions with foreign nations, relative to commerce and navigation; acts respecting the introduction of Aliens, their naturalization and registry, their entry being under custom-house regulations; acts providing for, and regulating the issue of, Letters of Marque, Sea-letters, and Passports; acts providing for the defence of Ports and Harbors, the protection of the Commerce and Seamen of the United States, the government and regulation of seamen on public and private vessels, and for the erection of Marine Hospitals, &c., &c.; whilst it omits other acts which directly appertain to sources of Revenue and the regulation thereof, such as those which relate to the sales of Public Lands, those establishing the rates and collection of Postage Duties, and those regulating the rates and collection of fees on Letters Patent for useful inventions. If the reasons are not so obvious to all for introducing those first mentioned, the frequent references to them in the instructions, as well as to others that might also seem out of place in the list, will sufficiently justify their location in connection with the Treasury Department; and, in regard to those which are omitted, notwithstanding their connection with sources of Revenue, the two latter relating to Revenue from Postage Duties and Patent Fees, (though not incompatible with a consistent, uniform, and homogeneous Treasury system,) being under the exclusive control of other departments, could not find a place in this list, although subject (nominally indeed) to the Treasury Department in the settlement of their accounts of receipts and disbursements; and as to the laws relating to the Revenue from the sales of Public Lands, they already, in a special and eminent degree, as previously shown, enjoy the amplest provisions for separate consideration, so as to forbid their being blended, in any manner, with the multifarious subjects, direct or collateral, of those branches of Revenue derived from Impost and Tonnage Duties, Hospital Tax, Internal Duties, Direct Taxes, Loans, and Miscellaneous resources, &c., which are the more appropriate subjects of these instructions, including the regulations for the settlement of all accounts of the receipts and expenditures of the Government.

Others, again, might with reason contend, that there is scarcely a law that does not in a considerable degree maintain a connection and dependance on the pecuniary resources and the fiscal operations of the Treasury Department, proximate or remote, initiative or final; and, therefore, should come into this LIST, thereby leaving out hardly a law in the whole Statute Book; the municipal legislation being for the most part reserved to the State legislatures; and this reflection brings into strong relief the true impress of the universal presence, agency, and actual control, more or less, of the Treasury Department in all the operations of the Government; and shows, that to do justice to its ubiquity in the affairs of the nation, it would not only be necessary to resort to such a list, but to make such a general classification and digest of the laws as would exhibit the minute ramifications of the Treasury agency with the other Departments, as also the like development of the co-ordinate systems of the War, Navy, Post Office, and State Departments, detailing all their minute connections with each other, as well as with the Treasury; which, indeed, is not incompatible with the proper design of illustrating the whole action and bearing of the Treasury, or financial system of the United States, so fitting and appropriate as it would be to impart any adequate conception of the entire sway of the Treasury system, deservedly occupying the centre of the co-ordinate systems, which revolve about it in reciprocal and commingling spheres, making one vast and magnificent whole.

*The aforesaid descriptive list of the Revenue laws, and the review of the promulgation of the laws, with the alphabetical Index to the subjects of those laws, have been omitted, as tending to swell this printed edition,

3. To show that this is not a strained or fancy sketch of the relative importance and consideration of the seve ral Departments, I may be allowed to submit a brief estimate of the comparative proportion of legislation devoted to the different subjects appertaining to each, derived from an analysis or dissection, and contemplation of them, separate and apart, in their proper and distinct elements. After devoting a great deal of labor to this abstruse examination, the following may be taken as a reliable result; though, from the mixed and promiscuous character of many of the laws, exactness in their assortment is not attainable.

1st. About one-fourth of the acts of Congress, from the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, relate directly or indirectly to Revenue, as derived from the various sources of the Customs, Internal duties, Direct taxes, sales of Public Lands, Postage duties, and Duties on Patents for useful inventions, as well as provisions for Loans, Certificates of Stock, Treasury Notes, Scrip, and other means of extending the public credit, on account of anticipated Revenue, with acts for the organization of the Treasury Department.

2d. About one-fourth of the laws are devoted to appropriations for the various general objects of defraying the expenses of the Government, under the denominations of Civil, Miscellaneous, and Diplomatic appropriation bills, appropriations for the Naval service, appropriations for the Military service, appropriations for intercourse with Indian tribes, appropriations for Fortifications and Internal Improvements, appropriations for the construction of Light-houses and Floating lights, &c.; all of which presently become obsolete, except particular sections or provisions, whose objects and purposes are continuous.

3d. About one-fourth are private acts, for the relief and satisfaction of the claims of individuals, corporations, and States, on the Treasury; which likewise presently become obsolete, upon the settlement of those claims. Hence, it would appear, that about three-fourths of the laws of the United States owe their administration, in chief, to the Treasury Department; that is to say, the Treasury Department is charged with the execution of three-fourths of the laws, wholly or in part, both in providing the Revenue and in disbursing it for the benefit of the whole, (excepting the Post Office Department in some extent,) and in settling the accounts, both of the receipts and expenditures of the Government.

4th. The other fourth part of the laws are devoted to the organization of the Department of State, the organizing and regulating our foreign relations, and providing for carrying treaties into effect; to the organization of the War Department, and the organizing and regulating the military establishment, together with our Indian and Territorial relations; to the organization of the Navy Department, and the organizing and regulating the Naval establishment and construction, together with the Marine Corps; to the organization of the Post Office Department, and the organizing and regulating the mail establishment of offices, post routes, and transportation; to the organization of the Judiciary establishment, and making provisions for the officers connected therewith: also acts providing for some miscellaneous matters, all of which in various proportions, only to be ascertained with exactness by extending the process of dissecting and contemplating them, separate and apart from other legal provisions (perhaps unavoidably) commingling with them, of which appropriation clauses or sections, properly appertaining to the Treasury, form a principal part.

4. This whole analysis of the laws, taken in connection with the analysis of the Treasury Instructions in execution of the Revenue laws in particular, (which latter process was a good preparatory school for the former,) has afforded an ample opportunity of ascertaining an important fact, that the entire plan of the classified synopsis of those instructions is strictly applicable to the details of those laws; and that, by analogy, the like plan might be extended to the whole national code; nor can it but strike every discriminating mind, that such a classification of subjects would probably conduce much to infuse greater method in legislation, by distributing them into appropriate and distinct bills, whilst passing through the refining crucibles of primary or originating committees. As some evidence of the practicability of such an enterprise in regard to the Revenue laws, it need hardly be remarked, that the close analogy, and in many respects the perfect identity, which subsists between the subjects of the instructions for executing those laws, and the subjects of the laws themselves, would fully justify the assurance of its complete success; nor will it be denied that the like analogy would be found, in extending the plan of classification to the whole code-which would doubtless result in a proportionably increas

ed extension of the like benefits, by affording a more facile and sure guide to method for all the Executive departments in preparing orderly instructions and decisions in execution of the laws, whereby those instructions and decisions would more likely prove to be a fair and accurate MIRROR of the laws-or, in other words, not so frequently mar them, supersede them, or prove paramount to them, in practice.

The Collection law of the 2d March, 1799, (though a master-piece, as a treatise on the various subjects it embraces,) affords one of the many fruitful examples that might be cited, of the commingling of a number of subjects entitled to distinct legislation, not indeed brought together by a simple reunion of so many subjects into one act, but by so dispersing and intermixing the parts of the same subject, with the dispersed parts of other subjects, as to mislead the unwary reader when he peruses a part of a subject in this act, into the supposition that he has there seen all that is said on that subject; whereas, he finds, to his surprise, sundry other provisions on the same subject recurring in other parts of the act. I estimate these different subjects at thirteen in number, (so broken up and intermixed in their details, as above expressed,) each of which is fully entitled to the consideration of a separate act. And this reunion of so many subjects in one act has, in this case alone, given rise to a PROGENY of some hundred supplementary, amendatory, additional, partially repealing and reviving acts, referring to, and growing out of, this mammoth act; which produces an interminable confusion in unpractised minds not competent to grasp so many parts having no obvious identity to entitle them to enter into one and the same act. Whereas, if they were distributed and enacted into separate laws, all this confusion would be obviated; the incongruity in the progeny of supplementary acts would disappear; and the original acts, with the modifications of them, in every case, would be more accessible and facile of comprehension and execution, than in a state of combination, frequently incoherent, and running through a text of nearly one hundred pages, as in the original act of 1799, mystified too, with ten fold that amount of additions and alterations, the connections of which with the parent act are hard to trace.

5. All laws, and the regulations to execute them, may become null, in two modes-by being repealed, and by becoming obsolete. When repealed or rescinded, they are irretrievably dead, except they be resuscitated by re-enactment. When they become null by growing obsolete, this will be in one of two ways-either because there is no further subject for their application or exercise, in existing circumstances, or, although there be occasion, their application and exercise cease from official neglect to execute them. Laws or regulations becoming obsolete in the former way, revive of themselves whenever the circumstances that first called them into existence may recur; and a law or regulation, becoming a dead letter in the latter way, may again be enforced, whenever the official remissness that suffered them to fall into disuse shall give place to official energy and circumspection in the discharge of public duties. So that, when laws and regulations become obsolete in the way first mentioned, they should nevertheless be kept under the continual watch of executive and administrative officers, in order to bring them again in play when the occasions for them are reinstated: but what should be done, when they become obsolete by neglect or non-user, I need not say. It is manifest, then, that a law or regulation not repealed or rescinded, but merely becoming obsolete, is no sufficient reason for consigning them to oblivion, whether they have become inoperative or obsolete in one way or the other: if in the one way, they may yet be in demand; if in the other, all know what should be done to resuscitate and to reinvigorate them.

Well, if the loose practice which has but too often prevailed were tested by these principles with a commensurate scrutiny, it would probably be found, that many of the laws and regulations which have become obsolete, have fallen into that supine condition by official default of some kind, either of oversight, or of wilful non-user; and I may dare assert, that very few will have the hardihood to contend that the fact of any portion of the Revenue Laws and Treasury Instructions, having thus become obsolete, (or, perchance, continued to be executed in any case after repeal,) should be deemed a good and valid objection to their receiving due notice in their proper connection in a work of this kind. But if, indeed, such a denunciation were to prevail, it might well astonish those who have been accustomed to repose under the broad panoply of that fundamental principle of Democratic government, which declares that "the People have a right to know all the official acts

and delinquencies of their public servants." For what other end is it, that Congress has ever taken so much pains to promulgate the Laws among the People? And what signifies a knowledge of the Laws, without the corresponding knowledge of the manner in which they are and have been executed? That there has, as yet, been a great failure in the efforts to afford them all facilities for the latter branch of information, will be readily conceded, when it is taken into consideration how little is known, even among their representatives, of the manner in which many of the Laws are executed by the subordinate officers of the Government, more especially the Revenue Laws, the most important of all, as they supply the sinews of war, and afford the nurture that prospers our institutions in peace.

Besides, to have those enactments and instructions retain their place and due notice, in a work like this may serve to remind us that the chasm occasioned by their repeal, or becoming obsolete, should again be sup plied by their resuscitation or re-enactment. And more, the preservation of such memorials of past action by the Legislative and Executive departments may serve to elucidate, at convenient moments of calm reflection the policy of those enactments, and the manner in which they have been executed, the due appreciation o which had been prevented by the distractions of the moment of their enactment, or their official execution. 6. A brief abstract of the grouping of the subjects which compose the several chapters, and a few example: of the manner in which the Laws and Instructions have been executed, neglected, or perverted, may be acceptable here, not only in sheer justice to the work itself, but to give a rapid survey of the whole scheme, which illustrates the same in a way heretofore unknown to Congress or to the Department, the one or the other having to rely upon the incidental development of isolated facts, for want of a proper classification and continuous review of them all under their appropriate heads.

The Synopsis of Treasury Instructions is divided into eight Chapters; those Chapters are subdivided into 28 Sections, in all; and each Section is devoted to a particular subject, embraced under the general head of the Chapter to which it belongs, or in some instances distributed into smaller divisions, as the details require. Upon such particular subject of each Section, or smaller division, the substance of every Instruction that has been issued by the Treasury Department, in execution of the laws on such subject, from 1789 to the end of 1844, is given; so that the action or experience of the Department, in relation to each subject, may be found embodied, in appropriate and brief abstracts, in each section, respectively, or smaller division, as the case may be; and, when greater detail is desired on any subject, it can be obtained by examining the original Instructions and the Laws, which are there specifically referred to.

Of the evidences afforded in every Section, respecting the official action of the Department and its subordinate officers of the Customs, and others, showing the efficiency or inefficiency of those officers in executing the Laws and the Instructions on the particular subject of such Section, or smaller division, from 1789 to the present time, it might be deemed invidious to select any particular facts, as examples for illustrating the rest. Nevertheless, the selection will be made, to show the action and experience of the Department on three principal subjects only, on account of their universality and importance, without reference to their greater or less enormity, in comparison with the other details of the work.

Chapter I, purports to give an "OUTLINE OF THE REVENUE OR FINANCIAL SYSTEM IN GENERAL." But, even as an outline, it is necessarily very imperfect, owing to the entire absence of any purpose in the "Circular Instructions" to exhibit the operations of the Treasury Department as a system, leaving it to laborious research, and a resort to other materials, to make the best of them for such object. Therefore, independent of their insufficiency for that object, it would have been exceedingly difficult to make a passable development of the system, by selecting and arranging those Instructions and expositions of the Revenue Laws which might be most apt to the purpose, without encroaching too largely upon the details proper to the subsequent Chapters, where they would require to be again rehearsed, in order to illustrate the different branches of the system, so far as a discriminating classification of those Instructions and Decisions would serve. Taking that outline, then, with all its imperfections, though susceptible of being in some measure supplied by the details of subsequent Chapters, there would nevertheless remain very considerable deficiencies in some of its parts; which,