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CHAPTER had acquired by their industry. Who dared to say that men holding slaves were unfit for office in republican 1795. governments! Let the House decide whether its Southern members did not partake more of the republican spirit than those from the Eastern States! What right had Congress to exclude a particular class of people from holding the same property with others? When thousands of slave-holders had so lately been slaughtered and thousands had fled for refuge to this country, where the masters of slaves could only keep them in peace with the greatest difficulty, was this the time for such inflammatory motions?

Giles, who saw the awkwardness of voting in the same breath against titles of nobility and in favor of slave-holding, professed his readiness to give up the yeas and nays. Holding property to be sacred, he never could consent to prohibit immigrants from holding slaves. As to titles of nobility, they were but a name, and nobody was obliged to give them up unless he wanted to become an American citizen.

Lee came to the aid of his Northern friends in a very sarcastic speech. The mischiefs, so he argued, experienced from orders of nobility did not flow from the names by which those orders were distinguished, but from their privileges as to property and political rights. Apart from those privileges, titles were mere empty gewgaws. According to his colleague (Giles), the reason why a foreign nobleman could not become a good citizen was, the nature of his education, the superiority which he had been accustomed to exercise over his fellow-men, the servile court he had been used to receive. Apply this same reasoning to the existing relation of master and slave in the Southern States-one rather more objectionable than even that of lord and vassal-and it would go

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far to prove that the people of those states were not qual- CHAPTER ified to be members of a free republic. But this they all knew was not the fact. Though the representatives 1795. from Virginia did hold slaves, their hearts, he was sure, glowed with as warm a zeal for the equal rights and happiness of man as those of the gentlemen from parts of the Union where this degrading distinction did not exist. Still he did not think that the citizens of the South could justly assume a superiority in political virtue over their fellow-citizens of the East. Not to be behind them was sufficient glory. The demand for the yeas and nays had given a certain importance to a proposition which before he had considered as utterly frivolous. It was calculated, he hoped not intended, to spread an alarm that aristocracy was coming to swallow us up, and to hold up certain gentlemen who had opposed the motion as the friends of aristocracy. He felt it to be his duty to discountenance any measure tending to excite groundless and unjust alarms, suspicions, and jealousies; and, though personally very indifferent to the matter, he should on that account vote against the original motion.

Smith of Maryland was desirous that the original motion might be allowed to pass without opposition. "The gentlemen from the Eastern States, who knew the republican character of their constituents, and how independent every man there is, both in his temper and his circumstances, had slighted the amendment as unnecessary. Gentlemen from the Southern States, on the other hand, say that they have reasons for apprehension. Why will not the Eastern members indulge us in this trifle?" The matter seemed likely to be thus arranged. Dexter had withdrawn his motion in expectation that the call for the yeas and nays would be dropped, when

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CHAPTER Nicholas broke out with great fury, declared that he "thoroughly despised" Dexter's motion, and insisted on 1795. having the yeas and nays. Dexter then renewed his motion, which was lost, twenty-eight to sixty-four. Giles's motion was carried, and the renunciation of titles of nobility incorporated into the bill, fifty-eight to thirtytwo. At the new election in his district Dexter failed to be chosen, partly, perhaps, on account of his vote on this occasion.

The leading measure of the session was an act providing for the gradual redemption of the public debt, founded on a plan furnished by Hamilton, but varying from it in several particulars. There had been already purchased up, under the provisions made for that purpose, $2,268,022 of the public stocks, which amount stood in the name of the commissioners for the reduction of the public debt, the interest upon it being appli cable to further purchases.

Exclusive of these stocks, the total amount of the public debt was as follows: Foreign debt (including $2,024,900 still due to the French government, also $1,128,599 of the two millions authorized to be borrowed for the use of the commissioners), $14,599,129; six per cent. stock bearing a present interest, $28,165,568; deferred six per cent. stock, $13,651,365; three per cent. stock, $18,972,980; unsubscribed debt estimated at $1,501,175; making a total of $76,950,218. To this was to be added about five millions of temporary loans, including the $1,400,000 still due on the subscription to the bank, against which, however, might be offset the bank stock, worth two millions at par, and more in the market; also the balance in the treasury, and the outstanding duty bonds. The foreign debt fell due by installments at short periods; the six per cent. stocks could only be

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paid at the rate of eight dollars a year on every hund- CHAPTER red, interest included; the three per cents. were redeemable at the pleasure of the government. The annual rev- 1795. enue, looking to past receipts, was estimated at six millions and a half, and the expenditures, including some three millions and more for interest, at $5,700,000; but a considerable part of this revenue was derived from duties and taxes laid for limited periods.

By the new act the entire management of the public debt was taken from the Treasury Department and vested in the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, to whose use was appropriated so much of the annual income from the impost, tonnage, and excise as might be necessary to pay the interest upon all descriptions of the public debt; also the remaining installments due to the bank, and that portion of the six per cent. stocks annually payable by the contract. To insure these payments, the temporary duties on imposts were made permanent, and the other temporary taxes were continued till the 1st of March, 1801. These payments, thus made, would complete the redemption of the six per cent. stocks within twentythree years from the commencement of the process: the six per cents., on which interest was already payable, in 1818; the deferred six per cents., in 1824. While these payments were thus going on, it was hoped to extinguish the three per cents. by purchases on the part of the sinking fund, to the use of which were appropriated the interest on the stocks held by the commissioners, the surplus of the bank dividends above the interest on the bank debt, such sums as might accrue from the sale of public lands, the proceeds of old debts to the government originating before the adoption of the Constitution, and all unexpended surpluses of appropriations not reappropriated at the ensuing session. By applying to the extinction of the foreign debt the means of redemption

CHAPTER Successively set free in 1818 and 1824, it was calculated VII. that the whole debt might be extinguished in 1826. 1795. Previous to the final passage of this act, which, by

providing for the discharge of the entire debt, gave com pletion to the funding system, Hamilton had resigned his office. He had for some time contemplated retirement, but had delayed it first to give Congress an opportunity to investigate his official conduct, and afterward on account of the threatening appearance of public affairs. During his six years of public service, he had placed the fiscal concerns of the United States on a solid foundation-that, indeed, upon which they have ever since rested. The investigations into his conduct, dictated by the suspicions of his enemies, had resulted altogether to his advantage. His whole scheme being now complete, and his official integrity thoroughly vindicated, he could safely leave to the administration of others that system which his genius had organized. Not possessing, like his Democratic rivals, Jefferson and Madison, the advantage of a paternal inheritance cultivated by slaves, Hamilton resumed the practice of the law. The inadequacy of his salary, especially as he had a numerous family to provide for, had indeed formed his prevailing reason for giving up his office. Knox, for similar pecuniary reasons, had resigned a few weeks before. His post was given to Timothy Pickering, and that of Secretary of the Treas ury to Oliver Wolcott, who had served under Hamilton since the first organization of the department, first as auditor, and then as controller. Joseph Habersham, of Georgia, succeeded Pickering as post-master general.

The appropriations for the service of the current year amounted to near three millions and a half, to meet which, in addition to the interest on the debt, six millions and a half of dollars would be necessary-an amount to which the revenue hardly reached.