was that the
claims of the original holders, not less than those of the actual holders,
should be fairly examined and justly decided," Finally Benson of New York
gave him a shrewd home thrust that plainly embarrassed him. He put the
question whether, if he had purchased a certificate from Madison, and the
Treasury withheld part of the amount for Madison as the original holder,
Madison would keep the money? "I ask," said Benson, "whether he would take
advantage of the law against me, and refuse to give me authority to take
it up in his name?" Madison evaded the query by saying that everything
would depend upon the circumstances of any particular case, and that
circumstances were conceivable in which the most tender conscience need
not refrain from taking the benefit of what the government had determined.

The debate on Madison's discrimination amendment lasted from the eleventh
to the twenty-second day of February--Washington's birthday. The House did
honor to the day when it rejected Madison's motion by the crushing vote of
36 to 13. With that, his pretensions to the leadership of the House quite
disappeared.

The assumption of state debts was the subject of a debate in committee of
the whole which lasted from the twenty-third of February to the second of
March. New factional lines now revealed a supposed diversity of interest
of the several States. The false notions of finance then current were
illustrated by an argument that was in continual use, either on the floor
or in the lobby. Members would figure how much their States would have to
pay as their share of the debt that would be assumed, and on that basis
would reach conclusions as to how their States stood to win or lose by the
transaction. By this reckoning, of course, the great gainer would appear
to be the State upon whom the chances of war had piled the largest debt.
This calculation made Burke of South Carolina, usually an opponent of
anything coming from Hamilton, a strong advocate of assumption. He told
the House that "if the present question was lost, he was almost certain it
would end in her bankruptcy, for she [South Carolina] was no more able to
grapple with her enormous debt than a boy of twelve years of age is able
to grapple with a giant." Livermore, representing a State never within the
actual field of military operations, at once replied: "I conceive that the
debt of South Carolina, or Massachusetts, or of an individual, has nothing
to do with ou