In 1790, with the customs laws firmly in place, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton set to work devising adequate means of enforcing the year-old regulations. “A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports,” Hamilton suggested, “might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of our laws.” Congress concurred, and that year appropriated $10,000 to build and maintain a fleet of ten revenus cutters, which were to be placed under the charge of the customs collectors, whose responsibilities would be enforcement of the tariff laws. Along with financial responsibility, Hamilton demanded that the officers be servants of the people. “They [the officers] will always keep in mind that their Countrymen are Freemen and as such are impatient of everything that bears that least mark of a domineering Spirit.”
Nine years later, Congress refined the revenue cutters’ role in customs operations with the passage of the Act of March 2, 1799, known as the Customs Administration Act. In particular, Congress determined “the cutters and boats employed in the service of the revenue shall be distinguished from other vessels by “an ensign and pendant, with such marks thereon as shall be prescribed and directed by the President of the United States.” Additionally, the Act permitted commanders of revenue vessels to fire at other vessels failing to respond “after such pendant and ensign shall be hoisted and a gun fired by such revenue cutter as a signal.” By this act the Revenue Marine (later called the Revenue Cutter Service) ensign served as the seagoing equivalent of a policeman’s badge, the distinctive sign of the vessel’s law enforcement authority.