obtained under it. Not one of these has found a patron in me. In fact I have generally set my face against such pretensions. As such men are generally wanting in virtue, their displeasure-nay, their resentment may be expected. "Why you want nothing neither for yourself nor friends," said a Senator one day to me, in some surprise. It was somewhat selfish, but I could not help uttering a wish that he could say so with truth of every one.

July 10. Being Saturday, the Senate did not meet, but I went to the Hall by a kind of instinct created by custom; something like a stage coach, which always performs it tour, whether full or empty. I met King and Langdon here. We spent an hour or two in very familiar chat. Nothing worth noting, unless it was the declaration of King, that a bargain was certainly made on the subject of the residence, to obtain at least one vote in the room of his, as it was mostly likely he would vote against the assumption, if the residence went to Philadelphia. I was astonished at King's owning this, which, in fact, amounted to this: that he had engaged his vote for the assumption, if the residence stayed in New York.

Sunday, the 11th, was, with me, a very dull day. I read at home, wrote the usual letters to my family, and other correspondents. After dinner, walked alone out on the commons beyond the Bowery, wherever I could find any green grass, or get out of the dust, which was very troublesome on the roads.

Monday, July 12. Attended at the Hall at the usual time. We received two messages from the Representatives; one of them contained the residence bill. We had considerable debate on the post office bill. Insisted on our amendments, and appointed a committee to confer.

Insisted on our amendment to the Indian intercourse bill, and passed the tonnage. This bill deserves a remark.

The bill is, in every respect, the same as the old one, bating the remission of some unintentional severities, which had fallen on some fishermen and coasters, which were remitted. The taking all the time, and passing all the forms of a new bill, would perhaps bear an interpretation as if we feared running out of work.

A motion was made for taking up the funding bill, but withdrawn. No other serious business was gone on. The House ad

journed.

A number of us gathered in a knot, and got on the subject of the assumption, the report on which had been just handed in by Mr. Carroll. It is in favor of it. And now, from every appearance, Hamilton has got his number made up. He wanted but one vote long ago.

The sums they have reported to be assumed, is twenty-one millions of dollars. This is most indubitably to cover the speculations that have been made in the State debts. This assumption will immediately raise the value of the State securities, and enable those people who have plunged themselves over head and ears in those speculations, to emerge from impending ruin, and secure them the wages of speculation. The report is ordered to be printed.

After dismissing this subject, we got on the prospect of an approaching war between Spain and England. Here was a large field for conjecture, and we indulged our fancies on the subject, until near three o'clock.

I will here note down an observation, which I wonder never made an impression on the Pennsylvanians. Every State is charged with having local views, designs, &c. Could any motive of this kind be justly chargeable on our State in adopting the constitution? By our impost, we laid many of the neighboring States under contribution —part of Jersey, Delaware, part of Virginia, and almost the whole of the western country. It appears one fourth of the whole impost is received at Philadelphia. This was a great sacrifice. QuereDid our politicians ever think of this advantage?

July 13. I attended this day at the Hall, at the usual time, or rather sooner. General Schuyler only was before me. Our President came next. They sat opposite to me, and we had a long chat on various subjects, but nothing very interesting. Mr. Morris came at last.

The resolution for the assumption of twenty-one millions of the State debts, was taken up. This was perhaps the most disorderly day ever we had in Senate. Butler was irregular, beyond all bearing. Mr. Morris said openly, before Senate was formed, I am for a six per cent. fund on the whole; and if gentlemen will not vote for that, I will vote against the assumption. I thought him only in sport then. But he three times, in Senate, openly avowed the same thing, declaring he was, in judgment, for the assumption; but if gentlemen would not vote for six per cent., he would vote against the assumption, and the whole funding bill. His adding the funding bill along with it, in the last instance, operated as some kind of palliation. Izard got up, and attacked him with asperity. Mr. Morris rose in opposition. Then Izard declared he did not mean Mr. Morris, so much did he fear the loss of his vote. But his invective was inapplicable to anybody else. I was twice up, and bore my most pointed testimony against the assumption. It was incurring a certain debt, on uncertain principles. The certain effect was, the incurring and increasing our debt by twenty-one millions,

by mere conjecture. This debt was already funded by the States, and was in a train of payment. Why not settle, and let us see how the accounts stand, before the States are discharged of their State debts. I alleged the funds, on which these debts were charged by the States, were those which the States could pay with the greatest facility, as every State had facilities of this kind. The transferring the debt to any general fund, would lose these local advantages. It was dealing in the dark—we had no authentic evidence of these debts. If it was meant as an experiment how far people would bear taxation, it was a dangerous one. I had no notion of drilling people to a service of this kind, &c., &c. But I cannot pretend to write all I said. Mr. Morris has twice this day told me what great disturbances there would be in Pennsylvania, if six per cent. was not carried. I considered these things as threats thrown out against my reappointment. But be it so; so help me God, I mean not to alter one tittle. I am firmly determined to act without any regard to consequences of this kind. Every legislator ought to regard himself as immortal.

July 14. This day the resolutions on the assumption were taken up. I am so sick and so vexed with this angry subject that I hate to commit anything to writing respecting it. I will, however, seal one of the copies of it in this book as a monument of political absurdity. It had friends enough-fourteen to twelve-so far, but I am not without hopes of destroying it to-morrow. I am now convinced that there must have been something in the way of bargain, as King alleged on Saturday. Ellsworth, at one time this day, used the following words: No man contemplated a final liquidation of the accounts between the U. S. and the I. S. as practicable or probable. I took them down, and showed them to Mr. Morris and Mr. Walker. He observed me, and, after some time, got up, and in the course of speaking, said: A settlement was practicable, and we must have it.

Mr. Morris, Langdon, and others moved to strike out the third section. We, of the opposition, joined Ellsworth, and kept it in. The State of Pennsylvania has not but about one million of existing State debt. This clause, if the vile bill must pass, may be considered as in her favor; more especially if they prevail, and prevent a settlement of the accounts.

For some time after the war, certificates were sold as low as nine pence on the £. John Ray, my old servant, told me that he sold one of £80 for £3, and could get no more. But it appears, by a remonstrance of the Executive Council to the Legislature of Pennsylvania entered on their minutes, that the market price was 2/6 on

on the £ at the time of passing the funding law. Yet by the instrumentality on a weak, and in some cases interested, Legislature, six per cent was given on the certificates, or forty-eight per cent. on the real specie value. This Pennsylvania paid for four years. As the certificates were generally below 2/6, it is no exaggeration to say every speculator doubled his money in four years, and still has the certificates, on which he expects forty-eight per cent. with respect to the original cost. Thus £100 specie bought £800 in certificates, (perhaps, much more.) These certificates brought £48 per annum for four years £192, and the holders of certificates remain as clamorous as ever.

July 15. The business of the Senate was soon done this day. The President took up the funding bill without any call for it.

Lee

Mr. Morris appeared in high good humor-asked me if anybody had taken me aside to communicate anything to me. I told him no. But it was easy to observe that something was going on. He said there was, but did not tell me what it was, nor did he affect to know. I saw Carroll writing a ticket with a number of names on it, sand, and put it by. In the meanwhile, up rose Ellsworth, and moved that both the funding bill and the resolutions for the assumption should be referred to a committee. He was seconded soon. rose-said, we know no good could come from a commitment. Mr. Morris rose said he was for the commitment; that they might be made in one law, and the rate of interest fixed at six per cent. I rose-said I knew of but two ends generally proposed by commitment. The one was to gain information; the other to arrange principles agreed on. The first was out of the question; the second only could be the object; but what was the materials to be arranged? A bill originated in the other House, and resolves on the assumption, which had originated in this. I knew the opinion of many of the Representatives was opposed to our power of originating anything relating to the subjects of the public debts. Taking two so dissimilar objects together, more especially if our powers were called in question, was the way to lose both. Gentlemen hoped much good from this measure. I wished they might not be disappointed; but I was not certain of anything but delay, which, in our present circumstances, I considered as an evil, &c.

The President, who was, to appearance, in the secret, seemed im- ✔ patient until I had done; and putting the question, it was carried. The. were all the six per cent. men, and all the assumption men. They carried the committee, all of their own number. This done, the Senate adjourned.

Henry came and sat beside me a good while. He told me that

Carroll wrote his ticket with the seven names, (that being the number of the committee,) before any business whatever was done. This I had observed, in part, myself. We did not need this demonstration to prove that the whole business was prearranged; nor can any person be now at a loss to discover that all the three subjects-residence, assumption, and funds equivalent to six per cent.—were all bargained and contracted for on the principles of mutual accommodation for private interest. The President of the U. S. has (in my opinion) had great influence in this business.

Mr. Maclay intimates that the plan acted on was to give to either New York or Philadelphia the temporary residence for the permanent residence on the Potomac; and that he found, by demonstration, that this was the case; and that York (New York) would have accepted of the temporary residence if we had not. "But," he adds, "I did not then see so clearly that the abominations of the funding system and the assumption were so intimately connected with it."

July 16, 1790. Senate had not been formed but a few minutes when a message from the President of the U. S. was announced. It was Lear; and the signature of the President to the residence bill was the communication.

Statement of Mr. Jefferson.

In the first volume of Randall's Life of Jefferson, pages 608-11, is a statement of Mr. Jefferson relative to the assumption bill. He observes, that this great and trying question was lost in the House of Representatives, and that Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the President's one day, I met him in the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the Legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the secession of their members and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert; that though this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President was the center on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally around him and support with joint efforts measures approved by him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government, now suspended, might be again set in motion.

I told him that I was a stranger to the whole subject; that not