r, simply because each of them
had a debt--$4,000,000--larger than that of any other State. The total
debt of all the States was about $21,000,000; and as that of North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Connecticut, when added to the $8,000,000 of
Massachusetts and South Carolina, amounted to half, or more, of the
whole sum, there was no difficulty in forming a strong combination in
favor of assumption. No combination, however, was strong enough to carry
the measure on its own merits, notwithstanding its advocates attempted
to defeat the funding of the domestic debt of the Federal Union unless
the debts of the several States were assumed at the same time.

The domestic debt, however, was at length provided for, and the
assumption of the debts of the States was rejected till that bargain,
referred to in the preceding chapter, which gave to the Southern States
the permanent seat of government, was concluded. It would not have been
difficult, probably, to defeat that piece of political jobbery by a
public exposure of its terms. Why Madison did not resort to it, if, as
seems certain, he knew that such a bargain had been privately made, can
only be conjectured. Perhaps he saw that Hamilton, who was applauded by
his friends and denounced by his enemies for his clever management, had,
after all, only made a temporary gain; and that Jefferson, whose defense
was that Hamilton had taken advantage of his ignorance and innocence,
would not, had he not been short-sighted, have made any defense at all.
For the assumption of the state debts by the general government was only
a distribution of a single local burden; and this was a small price for
Virginia and the other Southern States to pay for the permanent
possession of the federal capital.

While these questions were pending, another was thrown into the House
which was not disposed of for nearly two months. The debates upon it,
Madison said in one of his letters, "were shamefully indecent," though
he thought the introduction of the subject into Congress injudicious.
The Yearly Meeting of Friends in New York and in Pennsylvania sent a
memorial against the continued toleration of the slave trade; and this
was followed the next day by a petition from the Pennsylvania Society
for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, signed by Benjamin
Franklin as president, asking for a more radical measure.

"They earnestly entreat," they said, "your serious attention to the
subject of slav