Washington and his colleagues; a chronicle of the rise and fall of federalism

grasp it. Soon after he took office, the House resolved that "an adequate provision for the support of the public credit" should be made, and it directed the Secretary of the Treasury "to prepare

noted "with peculiar pleasure." On the next day a letter from Hamilton was read in the House stating that he

turning against the plan of oral communication some who had favored giving the Secretary the same direct access to Congress that the Superintendent of Finance had formerly enjoyed. Ames, for instance, now desired that the Secretary's communications should be in writing since "in this shape they would obtain a degree of permanency favorable to the responsibility of the officer, while, at the same time, they would be less liable to be misunderstood." Benson suggested that since the resolution of Congress had directed the Secretary to make a report, i

sue an opposite conduct." To discharge the principal of the public debt was of course impracticable; nor was it desirable, as the creditors would be well pleased to leave it at interest. Incidentally the funding of the debt would provide securities that would serve trade as a species of currency, and would set in motion a long train of benefits that would extend throughout the community. In the funding operation the debts contracted by the States should be included. As to this Hamilton remarked:

uire the extension of taxation to a degree and to objects which the true interest of the public creditor forbids." He therefore favored a composition, in arranging which there would be strict adherence to the principle "that no change in the rights of creditors ought to be attempted without their voluntary consent; and that this consent ought to be voluntary in fact as well as in name." It followed that "every proposal of a change ought to be in the shape of an appeal to their interests; but not to their necessities." Hamilton then

ular attention that among ourselves the most enlightened friends of good government are those whose expectations are the highest. To justify and preserve their confidence; to promote the increasing respectability of the American name; to answer the calls of justice; to restore landed property to its due value; to furnish new resources both

Hamilton had "a very boyish, giddy manner, and Scotch-Irish people could well call him a 'skite.'" Jackson of Georgia exposed to the House the folly of Hamilton's proposals by pointing out that a funded debt meant national decay. He mentioned England as "a melancholy instance of the ruin attending such engagements." To such a pitch had the "spirit of funding and borrowing been carried in that country" that its na

ampshire admitted that the foreign debt should be provided for, since it was "lent to the United States in real coin, by disinterested persons, not concerned or benefited by the revolution," but that the domestic debt was "for depreciated paper, or services done at exorbitant rates, or for goods or provisions supplied at more than their real worth, by those who received all the benefits arising from

y advanced to us in the day of distress." In the course of the debate the power to do was so often mentioned as implying the right to do that Ames was moved to remark: "I have heard that in the East Indies the stock of the labor and the property of the empire is the property of the Prince; that it is held at his will and pleasure; but this is a slavish doctrine, which I hope we are not prepared to adopt here." As a matter of fact, there had already been extensive scaling of the debt, and the note emissio

us and irrelevant, it rambled in any direction a speaker's fancy might suggest. Moreover, its quality was impaired because any consideration of motive was of the nature of talking about a man behind his back and this, everyone knows, is very different from saying things to his face. Assertions and innuendos which would hardly have been hazarded had Hamilton

not given more for it than three or four; and it is added that it would be hard to aggravate the misfortune of the first owner, who, probably through necessity, parted with, his property at so great a loss, by obliging him to contribute to the profit of the person who had speculated on his distresses." Nevertheless, Hamilton submitted considerations showing that discrimination would be "equally unjust and impolitic, as highly injurious even to the original holders of public securities, as ruinous to pub

ed services entitling them to pay. He mentioned that he himself appeared on the record as original holder in cases wherein he had really acted in behalf of his neighbors to relieve them of the trouble of personal appearance. Madison's proposition would therefore invest him with a legal title to property which really belonged to others. But this and other evidence of the real effect of Madison's proposal failed to move him, further than to cause him to declare that "all that he wished was that the claims of the original holders, not less than those of the actual holders, should be fairly examined and justly decided," Finally Benson of New York

ebruary-Washington's birthday. The House did honor to the day when it rejected Madison's motion by the

assumption. He told the House that "if the present question was lost, he was almost certain it would end in her bankruptcy, for she [South Carolina] was no more able to grapple with her enormous debt than a boy of twelve years of age is able to grapple with a giant." Livermore, representing a State never within the actual field of military operations, at once replied: "I conceive that the debt of South Carolina, or Massachusetts, or of an individual, has nothing to do with our deliberations. If they have involved themselves in debt, it is their misfortune, and they must extricate themselves as well as they can." On a later occasion Stone of Maryland, another State that lay outside the track of war, gave the leading war-debt States an admonition of the kind that adds insult to injury, saying "however inconvenient it may be to Massachusetts o

tates had formerly possessed. This position at the present day seems reasonable enough, but it is certain that at that time people worked themselves into a genuine rage over the matter and were able to persuade themselves into a sincere belief that it was outrageous the unfortunate States should expect th

t of ancestor worship that has long ruled American history, one is bound to say that-apart from some forceful pamphleteering of transient purpose-the voluminous political literature of the formative period displays much pedantic erudition but has little that goes really deep. The Federalist, the artillery of a hard fought battle, is a striking exception. So, too, is the series of reports by Hamilton. But his plans could not prevail by for

, he used pressure of interest to move those who could not be stirred by reason. The intense concern felt by members in the choice of the site of the national capital supplied him with the leverage which he brought to bear on the situation. Most of the members were more stirred by that question than by any other before Congress. It was a prominent topic in Madison's correspondence from the time the Constitution was adopted. Maclay's diary abounds with references to the subject. Some of his bitterest sentences are penned about the conduct of those who preferred some other site to that on the Susquehanna River which he knew to be the best because he lived there himself. Bargaining among the members as to the selection had been going on almost from the first. As early as April 26, 1789, before Washington had been installed in his office, Maclay mentions a meeting "to concert some measures for the removal of Congress." Thereafter notices of pending deals a

rst and vanish, and the States separate to take care everyone of itself." In this letter Jefferson outlined the compromise that was actually adopted by Congress. The strongest opposition to the assumption bill had come from Virginia, although Maryland, Georgia, and New Hampshire also opposed it, and the Middle States were divided. Jefferson was able to get enough Southern votes to carry assumption in return for enough votes from Hamilton's adheren

rformed was the most useful in all his long and fruitful career. But for this action, the Declaration of Independence, to the drafting of which he owes his greatest fame, might now be figuring among the historical documents of lost causes, like similar elaborate statements of principle made during the Commonwealth period in England

istic of the sordid tribe. Jefferson has left an account of "the base scramble." "Couriers and relay horses by land, and swift sailing pilot boats by sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners and agents were associated and employed in every state, town, and country neighborhood, and this pape

ad not the issue been so long in doubt. Nevertheless there was much speculative activity, and the charge was soon made that it extended into Congress.[Footnote: This charge was put forth by John Taylor in pamphlets printed in 1793 and 1794, in which he reviewed the financial policy of the Administration and gave a list of Congressmen who had invested in the public funds. The facts on which this charge rests have been collected and examined by Professor Beard in his Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. His analysis shows that out of sixty-four members of the House, twenty-nine were security holders, and of these twenty-one voted for and eight voted against assumption. But the facts di

ton's famous report on manufactures, a masterly analysis of the sources of national wealth and of the means of improving them, was sent to Congress on December 5, 1791. Upon his recommendation Congress established the mint, the only point which excited controversy being Hamilton's proposal

now in fashion. Government, it is true, like every other form of life, must meet the fundamental needs of subsistence and defense, but this truism supplies no explanation of the particular mode of doing so that may be adopted. Those needs account for motion but not for direction. Human will, discernment, and purpose enter and complicate the situation in a way that makes theories of determinism appear absurd. No one has ever contended that Hamilton was prompted by an economic motive in giving up his law practice to a