the war of the revolution had been comparatively limited. It was a matter, moreover, to be supported or opposed according to the various views of the state and the national governments. They who, like the proposer of the system, desired to see the national government strong, advocated its being made the centre of 'the public credit; while they who inclined to the rights of the states, preferred to have the debt remain in state rather than in national stocks.

Manner

of decision.

The question was not decided upon any abstract grounds. It had been a bone of contention where the seat of the general government should be located, some going for one place and some for another. When the House of Representatives decided against assuming the state debts, the advocates of the assumption hit upon the plan of securing the necessary votes from some of the Virginian or Maryland members, by consenting to fix the projected capital on the Potomac.* The bait was snapped at, and a measure on which the honor of the states, if not of the nation, depended, passed by means of unconcealed intrigue. The state debts were then assumed, not in mass, but in certain proportions. This being the chief object of altercation, the funding of the domestic and foreign debt of the general government was rapidly completed, (August 4, 1790.) The transaction was by no means to the satisfaction of the entire nation. Even Virginia, whose representatives had voted for the scheme, considering their state to be amply repaid by the location of the capital on the Potomac, declared against the whole system, save only that part relating to the foreign debt. The funding of the general domestic debt was pronounced to be "dangerous to the rights, and subversive of the interests, of the people;" while that of the state debts was "repugnant to the Constitution." The opposition did not end here.

* Philadelphia to be the capital until 1800.

National

The public creditors, on the other hand, were debank. lighted. All the moneyed interests of the country, indeed, were quickened, the public bonds being so much additional capital thrown into the world of industry and of commerce. The creation of a national bank, with the design of sustaining the financial operations of government, took place in the early part of the following year, (1791.) On the opening of the subscription books, a signal proof of the confidence now placed in the national credit was given, the whole number of shares offered being taken up in two hours. At the same time, the number and the earnestness of the party averse to these movements of the government were increased by the success with which they were attended. It had been made a question in the very cabinet of the president, by Jefferson and Randolph, whether the charter of the bank was not beyond the limits of the Constitution. Washington himself had hesitated to approve the act of Congress. The construction of the Constitution was one of

Parties.

the points on which parties were now contending. It was a natural principle with the federalists that the Constitution should be interpreted freely; that is, in such a way as to give the government the full measure of its powers. On the other hand, the anti-federalists were for limiting the provisions of the Constitution, if not as far as possible, at least as far as they thought required by the independence of the states and of the people. Every subject brought before Congress excited questions of congressional powers. The organization of the government, the creation of a tariff, of a national debt, and, as just mentioned, of a bank, all were argued for or against, according to the different views of the work to be done by Congress. Party spirit, however, was by no means confined to constitutional arguments. It appeared on every occasion, charging the federalists, now the dominant class, with monarchi

cal schemes as their ends, and with corrupt dealings as their means; while the anti-federalists, who took the name of republicans, were accused of tendencies to intrigue and to sedition. So violent was the temper on both sides, that the cry went up of separation from the Union. This, too, when the Union was but just formed.

But of all the passions so prematurely exploding, Especially north and none were so threatening as those of the north and south. the south. The same division that had been observed to be wider than any other before the Constitution, continued wider than any still. Even the controversies

between the federalists and the republicans were not so great or so absorbing as to crowd out the matters of dissension between the Southern and the Northern States. Nay, the divisions of the two portions of the country were rather enhanced by those between the two parties; for although there were many republicans in the north and many federalists in the south, yet the south, as a general rule, was republican, and the north federalist. This was inevitable. The interests of the northern industry, its shipping, its commerce, and its manufactures, called for a very different policy on the part of the government from that demanded by the southern agriculture.

Points concern

ing slavery.

The great line of distinction was run by slavery. The points of this thorny subject, so far from being smoothed by the compromises of the Constitution, stood up as bristling as ever. In the very first year of the new government, there came petitions from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, asking for the abolition of the slave trade. With this, as stated in the account of the Convention, Congress had no power to interfere for a period of twenty years. But the introduction of the subject brought up a storm, as it was called by a member from Georgia, which lasted for days and even

weeks, until the adoption of a committee's report that Congress had no authority over the slave trade, except with foreign countries, until 1808, the date prescribed by the Constitution. At the same time, all pretensions to control the treatment or the emancipation of slaves, in the states where they existed, were expressly abjured by Congress. This did not prevent an earnest Delaware Quaker from petitioning some two or three years afterwards for the abolition of slavery. The petition was returned to the petitioner, (November, 1792.) A later memorial, (January, 1794,) from a convention of societies for the abolition of slavery, held at Philadelphia, asking Congress to take such measures as the Constitution allowed against the slave trade, resulted in an act prohibiting the trade with foreign lands. So far as related to the slave trade, there seems to have been no opposition on the part of the Southern States to its suppression. They were all moving more or less actively in the same direction.* What they opposed was

the interference of Congress with

of the country.

As to the territories.

slavery within the limits

On this particular point the opposing theories of after years were not yet distinctly formed. But there was an evident foreboding of future divisions. It was generally agreed that Congress had no power in relation to slavery in the states. But it was generally urged on one side, and by no means generally repelled on the other, that the existence of slavery, as of any other system, in the territories, did depend upon Congress. There were the clauses of the Constitution "The Congress

shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory or other property

* The traffic was prohibited in all the states by 1798. South Carolina, however, revived it in 1804.

belonging to the United States;" "New states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." On these the opponents of slavery relied, as empowering Congress to exclude the system from any territories to be organized, or any states to be admitted. The great precedent of the Northwest Territory, where slavery was expressly prohibited by the Congress of the Confederation, was ratified by the first Congress under the Constitution. It claimed-so the north、 ern men felt-to be not only ratified, but followed. That it might be followed, was distinctly amongst the apprehensions of the southerners, the more naturally from its having been proposed by one of themselves, Thomas Jefferson, as we have read, to exclude slavery from all the unsettled territories. When North Carolina ceded her western lands to the Union, she did so on the express condition "that no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of slaves,” (1789.)

point of

future

strife.

Here was the starting point of all future strife. Starting It was in the power of Congress to reject the proposed condition on the ground that its authority over the territories was not thus to be trammelled. Or it might have taken exactly the opposite ground, and declared that it had no right to impose any conditions upon the territories. Supposing either position to have been taken permanently, the question of slavery in the territories might have come up again. But the constitutional principle on which it could be decided as often as it recurred, would have been established. Of all this there seems to have been little or no perception. Not even Washington - he who was so fixed against all sectional divisions exerted himself to close this prolific source of bitterness and of contention. Congress accepted the cession of North Carolina, and organized the district as the Territory South of the Ohio, (1790.)