e community." "As far as I know," he said, "there is not
a member of the legislature who can properly be called a stockjobber or
a paper-dealer. There are several of them who were proprietors of public
debt in various ways; some for money lent and property furnished for the
use of the public during the war, others for sums received in payment of
debts; and it is supposable enough that some of them had been purchasers
of the public debt, with intention to hold it as a valuable and
convenient property, considering an honorable provision for it as a
matter of course.

"It is a strange perversion of ideas, and as novel as it is
extraordinary, that men should be deemed corrupt and
criminal for becoming proprietors in the funds of their
country. Yet I believe the number of members of Congress is
very small who have ever been considerable proprietors in
the funds. As to improper speculations on measures
depending before Congress, I believe never was any body of
men freer from them."

To the charge that the federalists contemplated the establishment of a
monarchy, Hamilton said: "The idea of introducing a monarchy or
aristocracy into this country, by employing the influence and force of a
government continually changing hands towards it, is one of those
visionary things that none but madmen could meditate, and that no wise
man will believe.

"If it could be done at all, which is utterly incredible, it
would require a long series of time, certainly beyond the
life of any individual, to effect it. Who then would enter
into such a plot? for what purpose of interest or ambition?

"To hope that the people may be cajoled into giving their
sanctions to such institutions is still more chimerical. A
people so enlightened and so diversified as the people of
this country can surely never be brought to it but from
convulsions and disorders, in consequence of the arts of
popular demagogues.

"The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a
subversion of the republican system of the country is by
flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their
jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into
confusion and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of
anarchy or want of government, they may take shelter in the
arms of monarchy for repose and security."

The rupture between Hamilton and Jeffer