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those left behind the payment of the whole debt would CHAPTER fall, though lands, from the great quantity thrown into the market by emigrants, had declined more than sixty 1790. per cent. in value. The tide-water counties, in which the debt was principally held, had suffered extremely during the war from the ravages of the enemy, having lost not less than seven thousand negroes. To these losses were to be added claims for British debts anterior

to the war. Yet upon these same counties would the burden of taxation chiefly fall; for, though the weight of wealth lay toward the seaboard, the western counties preponderated in political power.

The

In favor of assumption, Burke dwelt at length on the sufferings, losses, and merits of South Carolina. arguments already urged in its favor were recapitulated by Lawrence, Goodhue, Smith of South Carolina, Hartley, Gerry, Wadsworth, Vining, Sherman, Clymer, and Fitzsimmons. The other side was supported by Jackson, Williamson, Page, White, and Moore, of whom the last assigned as a principal reason why Virginia was opposed to the assumption, that the certificates of the state debt had passed at a great discount into the hands of the merchants, and that, under the circumstances, the planters thought it unreasonable to be taxed to pay the full amount. Sherman summed up for the assumptionists, to whom White replied, not without allusions to what he understood as threats thrown out during the debate, that if the state debts were not assumed, the Eastern States would secede from the Union. The question being taken, the assumption was lost, twenty-nine to April 12 thirty-one, a decision which drew out from Sedgwick very energetic remonstrances as to the political dangers thereby incurred-remonstrances to which Jackson replied in a tone just as lofty. Gerry moved to refer the

CHAPTER matter to a committee of one from each state, but this

II. motion finally failed. Instead of it, a bill was ordered to 1790. be brought in, founded on Madison's resolution already April 20. mentioned, for expediting and completing the settlement between the Union and the states.

Pending the discussion of the remaining resolutions as to the terms on which the debt should be funded, the question of the state debts was repeatedly reintroduced. Sherman suggested the assumption of certain specific sums for each state, amounting in the whole to nineteen millions three hundred thousand dollars, substantially the same plan adopted in the end. This proposition, and, indeed, the whole policy of assumption, was opposed in an elaborate speech by Madison, who had hitherto refrained from any very active part on this question. Provoked at the pretensions set up by Madison and others. of extraordinary efforts on the part of Virginia during the war, Ames moved for a call upon the War Department for the number of men furnished by each state to the Revolutionary armies, a motion vehemently opposed, but carried by a small majority.

After an interval employed in other business, the May 24. Funding Bill being under consideration in Committee of the Whole, Gerry proposed an amendment, very similar to Sherman's, for the assumption of certain specified portions of the state debts. The advocates of assumption took this occasion to reply to the arguments urged by Madison at the end of the former debate, and also to show, from the answer to Ames's call for information, that the alleged superiority of revolutionary exertions on the part of Virginia was by no means a fact. It appeared, indeed, that Massachusetts had furnished more men to the Continental army than all the states together, from Delaware southward. Any direct question on Ger

II.

ry's motion was avoided by the rising of the committee; CHAPTER and the bill being reported to the House with an amendment for funding the outstanding Continental money at 1790. the rate of seventy-five for one, was passed and sent to June 2. the Senate.

The president had communicated, the day before, in a message to both houses, the accession of the State of Rhode Island to the new federal system. By the casting vote of Governor Collins in the Board of Assistants, a bill calling a state convention, to take into considera-' tion the Federal Constitution, had passed the Rhode Island Assembly early in the year. Along with notice Jan. 21. of this act, an urgent request had been sent to Congress for a further suspension, as to Rhode Island shipping, of the extra duties on foreign vessels. When the Convention met at the time appointed, the anti-Federal members found themselves a majority; but not daring to venture on a positive rejection of the Constitution, they procrastinated matters by voting an adjournment. The annual election occurring in the interval, Collins was dropped by the anti-Federalists, and Arthur Fenner chosen governor in his place. But the ruling majority felt very doubtful and uneasy. The secession of the two commercial towns of Providence and Newport, indeed the partition of the whole state between Massachusetts and Connecticut, was openly talked of, as well in Rhode Island itself as in the neighboring states. As a further stimulus, the federal Senate passed a bill, and sent it May 18. down to the House, prohibiting commercial intercourse with the recusant state, and authorizing a demand upon her for her quota toward the Continental debt. On the reassembling of the Rhode Island Convention, another attempt at procrastination was made by moving a further adjournment. This, however, failed; and the Consti

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CHAPTER tution was at length ratified by a majority of two votes, not, however, without previously setting forth, besides 1790. twenty-one proposed amendments to the body of the instrument, a Bill of Rights, in eighteen articles, declared, like the similar bill set forth by the New York ratifying Convention, consistent with the Constitution, and incapable of being abridged or violated. Thus were all the states of the original confederacy again reunited, by their own free consent, under the Federal Constitution. Rhode Island members presently took their seats in Congress; immediately after the adjournment, the president paid a visit to that state, where he was welcomed with no less enthusiasm than he had been in other parts of New England.

The

Though defeated in the House, the friends of the assumption of the state debts did not despair; and, indeed, means were soon found to connect this question with another, in which local interests and jealousies were not less involved that of a permanent seat for the federal government. By a combination at the last session between the members from the Eastern and Middle States, a bill, as we have seen, had very nearly passed, though finally defeated on a trifling matter of difference between the two houses, for fixing the permanent seat of government on the Delaware near Philadelphia, Congress to continue to sit at New York till the necessary buildings could be erected. At the present session new combinations had been formed. The Pennsylvanians seemed unwilling to risk the temporary residence at New York, and by their votes, and those of the Southern members, May 31. a resolution had been carried in the House for holding the next session of Congress at Philadelphia. The SenJune 8. ate having rejected this resolution, another was sent to

them for holding the next session at Baltimore; but they

II.

were not disposed to sanction a removal from New York, CHAPTER unless the whole question could be settled at the same time. A bill had been introduced for that purpose, but 1790. any agreement as to the precise spot was found very difficult.

The states most interested in having the federal capital on the Potomac were Virginia and Maryland, and, as a very rapid growth seems to have been generally anticipated for the federal city, this interest was particularly strong in that part of these two states immediately bordering on the river. It occurred to Robert Morris and others, strong advocates for the assumption, that, if gratified as to the seat of the federal capital, some of the Virginia and Maryland members might be willing to yield the other point, and a change of two or three votes would be sufficient to change the majority in the House. Jefferson complains in his Ana that, having but lately arrived at New York-he had, in fact, arrived and entered upon the duties of his office in the midst of the slavery debate he was "most ignorantly and innocently made to hold the candle" to this intrigue, "being duped into it," as he alleges, "by the Secretary of the Treasury, and made a tool of for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood." Hamilton, it seems, appealed to Jefferson for his aid and co-operation as a member of the cabinet in calming an excitement, and bringing about the settlement of a question which seemed to threaten the very existence of the federal government. Jefferson proposed to Hamilton to dine with him the next day, on which occasion he would invite another friend or two, to see whether it "were not possible, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise to save the Union." At this dinner-party the subject was discussed, Jefferson, as he assures us, taking "no part but