ntended that the general government would acquire an undue
influence, and that the state governments would be annihilated by the
measure. Not only would all the influence of the public creditors be
thrown into the scale of the former, but it would absorb all the
powers of taxation, and leave to the latter only the shadow of a
government. This would probably terminate in rendering the state
governments useless, and would destroy the system so recently
established. The union, it was said, had been compared to a rope of
sand; but gentlemen were cautioned not to push things to the opposite
extreme. The attempt to strengthen it might be unsuccessful, and the
cord might be strained until it should break.

The constitutional authority of the federal government to assume the
debts of the states was questioned. Its powers, it was said, were
specified, and this was not among them.

The policy of the measure, as it affected merely the government of the
union, was controverted, and its justice was arraigned.

On the ground of policy it was objected, that the assumption would
impose on the United States a burden, the weight of which was
unascertained, and which would require an extension of taxation beyond
the limits which prudence would prescribe. An attempt to raise the
impost would be dangerous; and the excise added to it would not
produce funds adequate to the object. A tax on real estate must be
resorted to, objections to which had been made in every part of the
union. It would be more adviseable to leave this source of revenue
untouched in the hands of the state governments, who could apply to it
with more facility, with a better understanding of the subject, and
with less dissatisfaction to individuals, than could possibly be done
by the government of the United States.

There existed no necessity for taking up this burden. The state
creditors had not required it. There was no petition from them upon
the subject. There was not only no application from the states, but
there was reason to believe that they were seriously opposed to the
measure. Many of them would certainly view it with a jealous,--a
jaundiced eye. The convention of North Carolina, which adopted the
constitution, had proposed, as an amendment to it, to deprive congress
of the power of interfering between the respective states and their
creditors: and there could be no obligation to assume more than the
balances which on a final settlement would be found due