Resolutions were then passed which were to form the basis of a bill; and which adopted, not only the principles, but, with the exception of a few unimportant alterations, the minute details of the report.
[Footnote 59: See note, No.VI.at the end of the volume.] Before the question was taken on the bill, a motion was made to limit its duration, the vote upon which strongly marked the progress of opinion in the house respecting those systems of finance which were believed to have established the credit of the United States.
The secretary of the treasury had deemed it indispensable to the creation of public credit, that the appropriations of funds for the payment of the interest, and the gradual redemption of the principal of the national debt, should be not only sufficient, but permanent also.

A party was found in the first congress who opposed this principle; and were in favour of retaining a full power over the subject in each branch of the legislature, by making annual appropriations.

The arguments which had failed in congress appear to have been more successfully employed with the people.

Among the multiplied vices which were ascribed to the funding system, it was charged with introducing a permanent and extensive mortgage of funds, which was alleged to strengthen unduly the hands of the executive magistrate, and to be one of the many evidences which existed, of monarchical propensities in those who administered the government.
The report lately made by the secretary of the treasury, and the bill founded on that report, contemplated a permanent increase of the duties on certain specified articles; and a permanent appropriation of the revenue arising from them, to the purposes of the national debt.
Thirty-one members were in favour of the motion for limiting the duration of the bill, and only thirty against it.

By the rules of the house, the speaker has a right first to vote as a member; and, if the numbers should then be equally divided, to decide as speaker.