r deliberations. If they have involved themselves in debt, it
is their misfortune, and they must extricate themselves as well as they
can." On a later occasion Stone of Maryland, another State that lay
outside the track of war, gave the leading war-debt States an admonition
of the kind that adds insult to injury, saying "however inconvenient it
may be to Massachusetts or South Carolina to make a bold exertion, and
nobly bear the burthens of their present debt, I believe in the end it
would be found to conduce greatly to their advantage." Burke made a
crushing rejoinder. "Was Maryland like South Carolina constantly grappling
with the enemy during the whole war? There is not a road in the State but
has witnessed the ravages of war; plantations were destroyed, and the
skeletons of houses, to this day, point out to the traveler the route of
the British army; her citizens were exposed to every violence, their
capital taken, and their country almost overrun by the enemy; men, women,
and children murdered by the Indians and Tories; all the personal property
consumed, and now is it to be wondered at that she is not able to make
exertions equal with other States, who have been generally in an
undisturbed condition?"

The argument pressed by the advocates of assumption was that the state
debts contracted during the Revolutionary War were for the common defense,
and that, unless these were assumed by the general government, the
adoption of the new Constitution would do injury by withdrawing revenue
resources which the States had formerly possessed. This position at the
present day seems reasonable enough, but it is certain that at that time
people worked themselves into a genuine rage over the matter and were able
to persuade themselves into a sincere belief that it was outrageous the
unfortunate States should expect the others to bear their troubles, and
that Hamilton was a great rogue for proposing such a scheme. Writing in
his private diary, Maclay characterized the plan as "a monument of
political absurdity," and he was in the habit of referring to Hamilton's
supporters as his "gladiators" and as a "corrupt squadron."

On the whole the records make painful reading. The prevailing tone of
public life was one of dull and narrow provincialism, at times thickening
into stupidity, at times sharpening into spite, although ordinarily made
respectable by a serious attitude to life and by a stolid fortitude in
facing whatever the distr