Alexander Hamilton

o the constructive skill of their author. Vigorous opposition was expected by Hamilton to the measures which he proposed. He had endeavored to meet and disarm such opposition as fa

mer states strongly supported from the first the entire policy of the Secretary of the Treasury. Rumors were already abroad that something was to be done to rest

, rose before noon the next day fifty per cent. of their quoted price. It was not yet certain that the project would be adopted by Congress, but shrewd men were willing to discount the future in much the same manner that brokers in Wall Street do at the present time. The absence of a well-organized stock market, with the ramifications of telegraphic quotations throughout the Union, put in the hands of the more daring of these sp

d agents were associated and employed in every state, town, and county, and the paper bought up at five shillings, and even

But it was so obvious that a distinction between the holders of the debt would run directly counter to its character as negotiable paper, and would be almost impossible of just execution, that the friends of the funding project easily had the best of the argument. Madison, although inclined to oppose Hamilton, was forced to admit that the debt must be funded at par without discrimination. He brought forward a pr

e whole was taken up in the House on March 29, several representatives from North Carolina appeared in the House and swelled the ranks of the opposition. North Carolina had been late in accepting the Constitution, and her members had not been present on previous votes. When, therefore, a motion to recommit the financial projects was made, it was carried by a vote of 29 t

was shared by all those who favored a vigorous central government, and practically by all the members of the party in Congress which was forming in support of the measures of Hamilton and looking to him as their leader. While casting about for some means for meeting the emergency, Hamilton fell upon a plan which represents one of the few cases in which he had recou

commercial cities of New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Local interests played the same part then as now in political man?uvring, and possession of the capital looked larger in the eyes of some members than the financial policy of the Union. In the sarc

y mutilating the funding bill and daring the assumptionists to reject it. The latter held to their position and rejected the bill, 35 to 23. It was while matters were in this acute stage, while threats were made on behalf of the North that the Union would be broken up if assumption were not carried, that Hamilton one day in front of the President's

him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; that not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the Union. The discussion took place. I could take no part in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed, that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the sta

ng secretary had acquired, and the well-knit party which was gathering around him, that he had no difficulty in carrying his part of the programme for seating the capital eventually on the banks of the Potomac. The bill to remove the capital was passed on July 9, 1790, by a majority of three, and the assumption of the state debts was carried soon after. The form of the assumption differed somewhat from the proposal of Hamilton, but it accomplished the r