January, but did not undergo consideration until the 8th of February,
when it was opposed with great earnestness, especially the point of
assuming the State debts, as tending to consolidation, as giving an
undue influence to the general government, and as being of doubtful
constitutionality. This financial union of the States was reprobated
not only on the floor of Congress, but in different parts of the
Union, as fraught with political evil. The Northern and Eastern States
generally favored the plan, as did also South Carolina, but Virginia
manifested a determined opposition. The measure, however, passed, in
Committee of the Whole, on the 9th of March, by a vote of 31 to 26.

The funding of the State debts was supposed to benefit materially the
Northern States, in which was the entire capital of the country; yet,
South Carolina voted for the assumption. The fact is, opinions were
honestly divided on the subject. The great majority were aiming to do
their duty--to do what was right; but their disagreement was the
result of real difficulties incident to the intricate and complicated
problem with which they had to deal.

At this juncture (March 21st), when Virginian discontents were daily
gaining strength, Mr. Jefferson arrived in New York to undertake the
duties of the Department of State. He had just been in Virginia, where
the forms and ceremonials adopted at the seat of our government were
subjects of cavil and sneer; where it was reported that Washington
affected a monarchial style in his official intercourse, that he held
court-like levees, and Mrs. Washington "queenly drawing-rooms," at
which none but the aristocracy were admitted, that the manners of both
were haughty, and their personal habits reserved and exclusive.

The impressions thus made on Jefferson's mind, received a deeper stamp
on his arrival in New York, from conversations with his friend
Madison, in the course of which the latter observed, that "the
satellites and sycophants which surrounded Washington, had wound up
the ceremonials of the government to a pitch of stateliness which
nothing but his personal character could have supported, and which no
character after him could ever maintain."

Thus prepossessed and premonished, Jefferson looked round him with an
apprehensive eye, and appears to have seen something to startle him at
every turn. We give, from his private correspondence, his own account
of his impressions. "Being fresh from the French