Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States : at the first session of the Third Congress. Anno M, DCC, XCIII, and of the independence of the United States the seventeenth

United States. Congress House of Representatives

Philadelphia : Printed by Childs and Swaine, 1794.

1st Session of the 3rd Congress.  Bound in contemporary marbled boards, rebacked on a modern leather spine.  Cover edges worn, with minor loss. Tennessee Historical Society stamps throughout.  Pages generally clean and without wear (except for persistent THS stamps). 

The laws and resolutions passed during President George Washington's 5-6th year in office.  During this Session, the Whiskey Rebellion began in Pennsylvania against federal taxation on liquor.   Two significant pieces of legislation were enacted in this Session: the Slave Trade Act of 1794 and the Naval Act of 1794.  The Slave Trade Act of 1794 "prohibit[ed] the carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to any foreign place or country."  This was a significant law in barring the trade of human cargo.  Also of interest to the history of Abolitionism, p. 85 describes petitions from the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting (Quakers) and Abolitionist Societies in Philadelphia for the abolition of the slave trade (101 p.).  

The Naval Act of 1794 established the U.S. Navy as a permanent fighting force.  Prior to its passage, the United States had no navy and the newly independent nation's ships were at the mercy of North African pirates.  This Act was in response to the actions of the Barbary States and the need to respond the Algiers crisis with force.  Most of the foreign policy reports from the session deal with these issues.  Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson had recommended the Navy's creation.  The origins of the modern American navy begin with this Congressional Act. 

During this session Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution was passed.  This Amendment dealt with issues stemming from Chisholm v. Georgia, where the Supreme Court ruled federal courts had the authority to hear cases between private citizens and states.  Significantly, states were deemed not to have sovereign immunity. 

1859 gift inscription of Mrs. Lizinka Campbell Brown (Daughter of Judge Campbell), gifting it to the Tennessee Historical Society.   Signed, G. W. Campbell.  Judge George Washington Campbell was an important early American statesman from Tennessee.  Campbell served as a Congressman, Senator, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice, U.S. Ambassador to Russia and the 5th United States Secretary of the Treasury.  His daughter, Lizinka (named after a Russian Czarina while Brown was Ambassador to Russia), was the wife of the noted General Richard S. Ewell (CSA). - Dictionary of American Biography.  EVANS 27910