Such dismal prognostications on the very eve of the Napoleonic era, with its tremendous revelations of national power, were quite common at that time.  The long rambling debate that took place in the House when Hamilton’s report was taken up for consideration abounds with similar instances of shortsightedness.  Many members did not scruple to advise repudiation, in whole or in part.  Livermore of New Hampshire 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 our change of condition.”  True, Congress had pledged its faith to the redemption of issues at their face value, “but this was done on a principle of policy, in order to prevent the rapid depreciation which was taking place.”  He argued that “money lent in this depreciated and depreciating state can hardly be said to be lent from a spirit of patriotism; it was a mere speculation in public securities.”

The distinction between the foreign debt and the domestic was seized by many members as providing a just basis for discrimination.  Page of Virginia observed that “our citizens were deeply interested, and, I believe, if they were never to get a farthing for what is owing to them for their services, they would be well paid; they have gained what they aimed at; they have secured their liberties and their laws; they will be satisfied that this House has pledged itself to pay foreigners the generous loans they 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 emissions had been pretty nearly wiped out.  To save the public credit from complete collapse, the Continental Congress had entered into definite contracts under the most solemn pledges, and it was upon this select class of securities that it was now proposed to start anew the process of repudiation.  But public opinion displayed itself so hostile to such perfidy that the party of repudiation in Congress soon dwindled to insignificance and the struggle finally settled upon two issues, discrimination and assumption.