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Thomas Jefferson Signed Document

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:9,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
Thomas Jefferson Signed Document

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Auction Date:2016 Sep 26 @ 13:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
DS, signed “Th: Jefferson,” one page, 7.5 x 11.5, March 2, 1791. Congressional broadside publishing “An Act to explain and amend an Act, intituled ‘An Act making further Provision for the payment of the Debts of the United States.’” The law affirms that “the duty of one cent per pound…on barr and other lead, shall be deemed and taken to extend to all manufactures wholly of lead, or in which lead is the chief article, which shall hereafter be brought into the United States, from any foreign port or place.” Additionally, the law authorizes that “the duty of seven and a half per cent. ad valorem, laid by the act aforesaid on chintzes, and coloured calicoes, shall be deemed and taken to extend to all printed, stained, and coloured goods, or manufactures of cotton, or of linen, or of both, which shall hereafter be brought into the United States from any foreign port or place.” Boldly signed at the conclusion in ink by Jefferson as secretary of state. Double-matted and framed with an engraving to an overall size of 23.75 x 21.5. In fine condition, with three horizontal folds and lightly haloed appearance to the otherwise large, bold signature.

This act came in the wake of the famed Compromise of 1790, a pact made at an historic ‘dinner meeting’ between Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Jefferson’s main rival Alexander Hamilton. Seeking to place the fledgling nation on firm financial ground, they accepted Hamilton’s proposition that the federal government assume state debts accrued during the Revolutionary War. The Funding Act, officially entitled ‘An Act making provision for the [payment of the] Debt of the United States,’ was passed on August 4, 1790, and resulted in the complete assumption by the federal government of over $21 million in state debts. The present act concerns the means by which this newly assumed debt could be paid off. Tariffs were the federal government’s primary form of collecting revenue—the income tax did not exist until 1913—and had the dual purpose of raising funds to pay debtors while encouraging American economic self-sufficiency. A fascinating document related to the federal government’s first great compromise.