this question was not of my department, yet a common
duty should make it a common concern; that the President
was the centre on which all administrative questions
ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally
around him, and support, with joint efforts, measures
approved by him; and that the question having been
lost by a small majority only, it was probable that
an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of
some of my friends, might effect a change in the vote,
and the machine of government, now suspended, might
be again set into motion. I told 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 States was more important, and that therefore
it would be better that the vote of rejection should
be rescinded, to effect which, some members should
change their votes. But it was observed that this
pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States,
and that some concomitant measure should be adopted
to sweeten it a little to them. There had before
been propositions to fix the seat of government either
at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown on the Potomac;
and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia
for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards,
this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the
ferment which might be excited by the other measure
alone. So two of the Potomac members (White and
Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost
convulsive,) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton
undertook to carry the other point. In doing this,
the influence he had established over the eastern
members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those
of the middle States, effected his side of the engagement;
and so the Assumption was passed, and twenty millions
of stock divided among favored States, and thrown
in as a pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd. This
added to the number of votaries to the Treasury, and
made its chief the master of every vote in the legislature,
which might give to the government the direction suited
to his political views.