To Washington, assumption seemed as obviously just as it does to posterity.  All the debts had been incurred in a common cause, he said, why should they not be cared for by the common government?  He had no patience with the sectional argument that assumption was unfair, because some States got more out of it than others.  Some States had suffered more than others, but all shared in the freedom that had been won.[1] He saw in it, moreover, as Hamilton had seen, something far more important than a mere provision for the debts and for the payment of money to this community or to that.  Assumption was essentially a union measure.  The other debts were incurred by the central government directly, but the state debts were incurred by the States for a common cause.  If the United States assumed them, it showed to the people and to the world that there were no state lines when the interests of the whole country were involved.  It was therefore a national measure, a breeder of national sentiment, a new bond to fasten the States to each other and to the Union.  This was enough to assure Washington’s hearty approval; but the measure was saved and carried finally by the famous arrangement between Hamilton and Jefferson, which took the capital to the Potomac and made the war debts of the States a part of the national debt.  Washington was more than satisfied with this solution, for both sides of the agreement pleased him, and there was nothing in the compromise which meant sacrifice on his part.  He rejoiced in the successful adoption of the great financial policy of his administration, and he was much pleased to have the capital, in which he was intensely interested, placed near to his own Mount Vernon, in the very region he would have selected if he had had the power of fixing it.

[Footnote 1:  Sparks, Writings of Washington, x. 98.]

The next great step in the development of the financial policy was the establishment of the national bank, and on this there arose another bitter contest in Congress and in the newspapers.  A sharp opposition had developed by this time, and the supporters of the Secretary of the Treasury became on their side correspondingly ardent.  In this debate much stress was laid on the constitutional point that Congress had no power to charter a bank.  Nevertheless, the bill passed and went to the President, with the constitutional doubts following it and pressed home in this last resort.  As has been seen from his letters written just after the Philadelphia convention, Washington was not a blind worshiper of the Constitution which he had helped so largely to make; but he believed it would work, and every day confirmed his belief.  He felt, moreover, that one great element of its lasting success lay in creating a genuine reverence for it among the people, and it was therefore of the utmost importance that this reverence should begin among those to whom the management of the government had been intrusted.  For this reason he exercised