Although the National Government did not assume control of immigration until 1882, Congress in 1864, on the recommendation of President Lincoln, passed a law to encourage immigration. It provided for a Commissioner of Immigration, to be under the direction of the Department of State, and that all contracts that should be made in foreign countries by emigrants to the United States, whereby emigrants pledged the wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months to repay the expense of emigration, should be held to be valid in law and might be enforced in the courts of the United States or by the several States and Territories, and that no such contract could in any way be considered as creating a condition of slavery or servitude. Following the enactment of the law several companies were established to deal in contract labor, but they were not satisfied with the law and wanted its scope enlarged. This indirectly led to the abolition of the entire law in 1868, and the brief period of national encouragement of immigration was over. A campaign against contracting for foreign labor began soon afterward, though no legislation to forbid it was enacted until many years later. A law, enacted in 1875, which provided for the exclusion of prostitutes, was chiefly designated to regulate Chinese immigration, and thus early touched two subjects with reference to which the most stringent exclusion laws were to be enacted in the period of national control over immigration, which was now approaching. In 1876 the Supreme Court of the United States declared laws enacted by several States to regulate and tax immigration to be unconstitutional, and expressly recommended that Congress should exercise full authority over immigration. This ultimately led to the enactment of the first general immigration law, which was approved by President Chester A. Arthur (1830–86) August 3, 1882. It provided for a head tax of 50 cents on all aliens landed at United States ports, the money thus collected to be used to defray the expenses of regulating immigration and for the care of immigrants after landing. It also provided that foreign convicts, except those convicted for political offences, lunatics, idiots and persons likely to become public charges, should not be permitted to land. Aside from a law forbidding the importation of contract laborers, adopted in 1885 and strengthened by supplementary laws in 1887 and 1888, and aside from the laws about Chinese immigration which do not concern us here, there was no legislation affecting general immigration for nearly a decade, though the question was now widely discussed in the press and there was considerable agitation for further restriction.