At about the same time that our new nation realized it had a duty to promote safe and efficient marine transportation, it was faced with a greater, more immediate challenge—the collection or revenues. In an atmosphere of almost total disregard by some marine interests for the new customs laws, where smuggling of commodities from foreign countries into the marketplace without paying customs duties was commonplace, this was no small challenge. The collection of revenues arising from customs fees and tariffs was one of the ways the new federal government could raise the money required to run the government; there was no income tax in those days! And there were, indeed, costs involved in running the government, particularly if the government was to "provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare," as stated in the Preamble to the Constitution.
In October 1789, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton asked the various collectors of customs about the need for boats to protect and ensure revenue collection. Sharp Delany, the collector at Philadelphia, replied that he was already using a vessel for that purpose and fully endorsed the concept. In April 1790, Hamilton asked Congress to create a Revenue Marine service with a fleet of ten small cutters. As the Continental Navy had been disestablished after the Revolution and would not be reestablished until 1799 no armed federal vessels existed with which a Revenue Marine service could be created.
On 4 August 1790, Congress passed Hamilton’s Revenue Cutter Bill, which provided for construction of the following ten armed cutters:
Scammel |
Active |
| Massachusetts | Virginia |
| Argus | Diligence |
Vigilant |
South Carolina |
| General Greene | Eagle |
Hamilton’s first ten armed vessels were not large by modern standards; they ranged in length from 40 to 60 feet. In fact, today we would call them boats, not cutters. Despite their small size and absence of uniformity in design, the law and these vessels established the precedent that all ships of the Coast Guard would forever be called cutters.
The date of 4 August 1790 is important to the Coast Guard because it is celebrated as the Coast Guard’s birthday. Even though the nation had announced its intention to promote safe and efficient marine transportation a calendar year earlier, our national commitment to construct, maintain, and man a fleet of armed vessels for actual law-enforcement operations is of far greater historical significance. It would not be until 1847 that official consideration would be given toward using federal lighthouse people for other than maintenance and lamplighting. By that time, the role of Hamilton’s armed federal vessels had expanded to meet several other national objectives, including the promotion of safe and efficient marine transportation.
Scarcely eight years had elapsed from the time that Hamilton first considered using armed federal vessels to promote revenue collection when a new threat emerged. Foreign armed vessels had begun making unprovoked attacks on our merchant marine. On 1 July 1797, Congress authorized the president to "increase the strength of the several Revenue Cutters . . . to defend the sea coast and to repel any hostility. . ." Thus, the Coast Guard became "multimission," having the two jobs of providing for the common defense as well as collecting revenues. Over the ensuing decades, other national purposes were served by our revenue cutters—specifically, enhancing the preservation of life by rescuing the shipwrecked, and promoting safe transportation by supporting the lighthouse establishment.