Assumption

Alexander Hamilton's plan to restore U.S. financial credit abroad by having the federal government assume the wartime debt of the various states. Southerners, who had done a better job of retiring their debt, resented the imposition of new taxes to cover the debt, but agreed to a deal to locate the national capital on the Potomac River.

Constitutional Convention

The secretive gathering in Philadelphia, PA in 1787, intended to address serious problems that arose in the U.S. following its successful war of independence from Britain. It was called to revise the Articles of Confederation, but James Madison and Alexander Hamilton from the start pushed to create an entirely new Constitution that would give the federal government real power to take the economic and political steps needed to assure the continuation of the work begun in 1776. In the partisan battles that began during Washington's second administration, the...