d profitable investment. At the South, capital was in slaves and
land, and could not be easily changed. If the Bank and the bondholders
were to exercise--as he feared they would, and as he believed that the
Federalists meant they should--a controlling influence over the
government, it was certainly pretty apparent "by whom the people of the
United States were to be governed." It would be the North, not the
South; and he was a Virginian before he was a Unionist.

Perhaps he was influenced by this consideration when he proposed that
the payment of the domestic debt should be divided between those who had
originally held, and those who had acquired by purchase, the
certificates of indebtedness. The public creditors would in that case
have been more widely distributed in different sections of the country
and among different classes. The thought, at any rate, does not seem to
have been a new one when he saw and reported the eagerness with which
the bank stock was sought for, denounced it as stock-jobbing and
gambling, and indignantly reflected that in these men he saw the future
governors of the country, and particularly of his own people. No doubt
there was a good deal of speculation; and, as at all such times, there
were a few who made fortunes, while many, who had at first much money
and no stock, next much stock and no money, had at last neither stock
nor money. But Mr. Madison's indignation was quite wasted, and his fears
quite unfounded. Neither the stock-jobbers, the Bank, nor the
bondholders ever usurped the government, whatever may have been
Hamilton's hopes or schemes, if he had any other than to serve his
country. The money-power of the North built cities and ships, factories
and towns, and stretched out its hands to the great lakes and over the
broad prairies, to add to its dominion, to extend its civilization, and
to give to labor and industry their due reward. It was the South that
devoted itself to the business of politics, and, united by stronger
bonds than can ever be forged of gold alone, soon entered into
possession of the government, which it retained and used for its own
interests, without regard to the interests or the rights of the North,
for nearly three quarters of a century. Mr. Madison had no prescience of
any such future in the history of the country, nor, indeed, then had
anybody else. He may have really believed that the holders of a large
public debt and the owners of a great national bank, thro