ught to govern it," pointing to the State
Constitution which he drafted, to prove that only the well-to-do could
vote. The Dutch, largely the slave holders of the State, accused him
of wishing to rob them by the abolition of slavery. Dressed in other
rhetorical clothes, these stories did service again in 1795 and 1798.

[Footnote 62: George Pellew, _Life of John Jay_, p. 275.]

But the assumption of state debts, and Hamilton's financial system,
became the fiercest objects of attack. To them were traced the "reign
of speculators" that flowered in the year 1791. "Bank bubbles,
tontines, lotteries, monopolies, usury, gambling and swindling
abound," said the New York _Journal_; "poverty in the country, luxury
in the capitals, corruption and usurpation in the national councils."
Hamilton's system had given the deepest stab to the hopes of the
anti-Federalists, since it taught people to look to the Union rather
than to the State. Internal taxes and import duties were paid to the
United States; coin was minted by the United States; paper money
issued by the United States; letters carried and delivered by the
United States; and state debts assumed by the United States. All this
had a tendency to break state attachments and state importance; and in
striking back, Republican orators branded the reports of the Secretary
of the Treasury as "dangerous to liberty," the assumption of debts as
"a clever device for enslaving the people," and the whole fiscal
system "a dishonest scheme." The failure and imprisonment of William
Duer, until recently Hamilton's trusted assistant, followed by riots
in New York City, gave colour to the charge, and, although the most
bitter opponents of the great Federalist in no wise connected him with
any corrupt transaction, yet in the spring of 1792 Hamilton, the
friend and backer of Jay, was the most roundly abused man in the
campaign.

The Federalists resented misrepresentation with misrepresentation.
Clinton's use of patronage, his opposition to the Federal
Constitution, and the impropriety of having a military governor in
time of peace, objections left over from 1789, still figured as set
pieces in rhetorical fireworks; but the great red light, burned at
every meeting throughout the State, exposed Governor Clinton as
secretly profiting by the sale of public lands. The Legislature of
1791 authorised the five state officers, acting as Commissioners of
the Land Office, to sell unappropriated lands in s