The shipwrights of Charleston in a petition pictured their
distress under the present condition of trade and begged relief by
proper legislation. Petitions soon followed from coach-makers,
soap-boilers, snuff-grinders, makers of mathematical instruments,
manufacturers of sheepskin trousers--in fact, nearly every form of
industry wished to take advantage of this opportunity to secure national
where they had formerly been able to get only local protection. The
members of Congress described in their letters to friends the fish
battles, the salt battles, and other manifestations in legislative
halls of the cupidity of mankind when opportunity is once presented.
In this way it came about that the first revenue measure in the first
session of the first efficient National Legislature brought the members
face to face with the question of the purpose for which government
exists. The Declaration of Independence had declared it to be the
securing of certain inalienable rights with which men are endowed by
their Creator. This French conception of certain abstract and general
rights had taken in British and colonial minds the very concrete shape
of property.
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