The Need For The Service
Immediately after the American Revolutionary War the new United States was struggling to stay afloat financially. National income was desperately needed, and the government determined that a great deal of this income would come from import tariffs. Because of rampant smuggling, the need was immediate for strong enforcement of tariff laws, and on August 4, 1790, the United States Congress, urged on by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, created the Revenue-Marine, later renamed the Revenue Cutter Service by act of July 31, 1894 (28 Stat. 171). It would be the responsibility of the new Revenue-Marine to enforce the tariff and all other maritime laws. In 1832, Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane issued written orders for revenue cutters to conduct winter cruises to assist mariners in need, and Congress made the practice an official part of regulations in 1837. This was the beginning of the lifesaving mission for which the later U.S. Coast Guard would be best known worldwide.
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Famous quotes containing the words the and/or service:
“As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)