The seeds of controversy sown by the Report on Public Credit began to grow and bear fruit as a result of Hamilton's second major state paper, the Report on a National Bank, which he submitted to the House of Representatives on December 13, 1790. The controversy with which this report was connected – Hamilton and Jefferson's celebrated clash over the constitutionality of the bank – was admittedly more a consequence of its plan than a subject of its argument. Like the Report on Public Credit, the Report on a National Bank reveals that Hamilton understood that his proposal would generate controversy, but he did not anticipate the full extent or the precise nature of the objections that would come. Thus the Report on a National Bank actually says nothing about the question that would be so hotly contested: the constitutional legitimacy of the measure. Instead, mindful of American suspicions about banks, and especially public banks, Hamilton dedicated much of the Report to a defense of such institutions on policy grounds. To a considerable extent, then, the Report on a National Bank is a compact treatise on the fundamentals of banking, and our inquiry need not dwell on its technical arguments on such issues.

Nevertheless, much in the Report merits careful attention because of the light it sheds on Hamilton's understanding of important principles of government and political life. As we will see, Hamilton did not regard the national bank merely as a technical question or a matter of ordinary policy but instead, like his initial plan to restore the public credit, as an essential step in fully establishing the energetic government promised by the Constitution. For Hamilton, a national bank, no less than a proper provision for the public credit, was an essential step in completing the founding.

Accordingly, in the Report on a National Bank Hamilton once again presented himself as a statesman-educator, elucidating for the public principles that he believed were essential to good government. Before laying out his plan for the bank, he “entreat[ed] the indulgence of the House” in permitting him some “preliminary reflections naturally arising out of the subject.”