d to Mifflin and be expunged
from the journal. Fisher Ames explained in a rather apologetic tone that
he had presented the petition at Mr. Mifflin's request, because the
member from Delaware was absent, and because he believed in the right of
petition, though "he considered it as totally inexpedient to interfere
with the subject." The House agreed that the petition should be
returned, and Steele then withdrew the motion to expunge it from the
journal.

In the next Congress, eighteen months afterward, the House took up the
subject of the slave trade, apparently of its own motion, and a bill was
passed prohibiting the carrying on of that traffic from the ports of the
United States in foreign vessels. The question was as inexorable as
death, and the difference in regard to it then was precisely what it
was in the final discussion of the next century which settled it
forever. One set of men was given over to perdition if they dared so
much as talk; the other set talked all the more, and went to the very
verge of the Constitution in act all the more, because they were bidden
neither to speak nor to move. Courage was not one of Madison's marked
characteristics, but he never showed more of it than in his hostility to
slavery.

[Illustration: Fisher Ames]

At the third session of the First Congress, which had adjourned from New
York to Philadelphia, where it met in December, 1790, Madison led his
party in opposition to the establishment of a national bank, which
Hamilton had recommended; and again, as in the adjustment of the
domestic debt, he and his party were defeated. He compared the
advantages and the disadvantages of banks, and possibly he did not
satisfy himself, as he certainly did not the other side, that the weight
of the argument was against their utility. At any rate, he fell back
upon the Constitution as his strongest position. To incorporate a bank
was not, he maintained, among the powers conferred upon Congress. The
Federalists, who were beginning to recognize him as the leader of the
opposition, were quite ready to accept that challenge. "Little doubt
remains," said Fisher Ames in rising to reply, "with respect to the
utility of banks." Assuming that to be settled,--whether he meant, or
not, that such was the conclusion to be drawn from Madison's argument
on that point,--he addressed himself to the constitutional question. If
the incorporation of a bank was forbidden by the Constitution, there was
an end of