should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would
be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant
measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had
before been propositions to fix the seat of government either at
Philadelphia, or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought
that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown
permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree
the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two
of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of
stomach almost convulsive,) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton
undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence he had
established over the eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris
with those of the middle States, effected his side of the engagement;
and so the Assumption was passed, and twenty millions of stock divided
among favored States, and thrown in as a pabulum to the stock-jobbing
herd. This added to the number of votaries to the Treasury, and made its
chief the master of every vote in the legislature, which might give to
the government the direction suited to his political views.

I know well, and so must be understood, that nothing like a majority in
Congress had yielded to this corruption. Far from it. But a division,
not very unequal, had already taken place in the honest part of that
body, between the parties styled republican and federal. The latter
being monarchists in principle, adhered to Hamilton of course, as their
leader in that principle, and this mercenary phalanx added to them,
insured him always a majority in both Houses: so that the whole action
of the legislature was now under the direction of the Treasury. Still
the machine was not complete. The effect of the funding system, and of
the Assumption, would be temporary; it would be lost with the loss
of the individual members whom it had enriched, and some engine of
influence more permanent must be contrived, while these myrmidons were
yet in place to carry it through all opposition. This engine was the
Bank of the United States. All that history is known, so I shall say
nothing about it. While the government remained at Philadelphia, a
selection of members of both Houses were constantly kept as directors,
who, on every question interesting to that institution, or to the views
of the federal head, voted at the