Another recommendation to the effect that invention ought to be encouraged and protected bore fruit in this same year in patent and copyright laws, which became the foundation of our present system.  The same good fortune befell the recommendation for a uniform rule for naturalization, and the law of 1790 was quietly enacted, no one then imagining that its alteration less than ten years later was destined to form part of a policy which, after a fierce struggle, settled the fate of parties and decided the control of the government.  The post-office was also commended to the care of Congress, and for that, as for the army, provision was duly made, insufficient at the outset, but growing steadily from this small beginning, as it was called upon to meet the spread and increase of population.

Provision was also made gradually, and with much occasional conflict, for a diplomatic service such as the President advised.  But this was merely the machinery to carry out our foreign policy on which, in a few years, our political history largely turned, and which will demand a chapter by itself.

A paragraph devoted to Indian affairs informed Congress that measures were on foot to establish pacific relations with our savage neighbors, but that it would be well to be prepared to use force.  This brief sentence was the beginning of an important policy, which, in its consequences and effects, played a large part in the history of the next eight years.

These various matters thus disposed of, there remained only the request to the House to provide for the revenue and the public credit.  From this came Hamilton’s financial policy which created parties, and with it was interwoven in the body of the speech the general recommendation to make all proper effort for the advancement of manufactures, commerce, and agriculture.

The speech as a whole, short though it was, drew the outline of a vigorous system, which aimed at the establishment of a strong government with enlarged powers.  It cut at a blow all ties between the new government and the feeble strivings of the dead confederation.  It displayed a broad conception of the duties of the government under the Constitution, and in every paragraph it breathed the spirit of a robust nationality, calculated to touch the people directly in every State of the Union.

Before taking up the financial question, which became the great issue in our domestic affairs, it will be well to trace briefly the story of our relations with the Indians.  The policy of the new administration in this respect was peculiarly Washington’s own, and, although it affected more or less the general course of events at that period, it did not directly become the subject of party differences.  The “Indian problem” is still with us, but it is now a very mild problem indeed.  Within a few years, it is true, we have had Indian wars, conducted by the forces of the United States, and ever-recurring outbreaks