n raised a cry of alarm from
those in the house opposed to the administration. It was resisted as
unconstitutional, and threatening to subject the house to executive
influence that might be dangerous--that heads of departments would
control the legislature.

A motion to refer the portion of the president's message relating to the
redemption of the public debt to the secretary of the treasury, to
report a plan, called forth still more angry opposition, and Jefferson's
charges of corruption were heard on every side. The secretary of the
treasury was violently assailed; and dark insinuations were made that
members of the house were implicated with Hamilton in dishonest
proceedings in relation to the assumption of state debts, the operation
of the Indian war, etc. And when Hamilton, in his report, offered a
scheme for the redemption of the public debt that effectually silenced
the clamors of his enemies, who had insisted that he regarded that debt
as a public blessing and meant to fix it upon the country as an incubus,
they changed their plans of opposition.

They called upon the president first for particular information as to
the several sums of money borrowed by his authority, the terms of the
loans, and the application of the money. These questions being
explicitly answered, another call was made by an unscrupulous member of
the opposition, from Virginia, for more minute information upon
financial matters. He made an elaborate speech in presenting the motion,
in which, in effect, he charged the secretary of the treasury with being
a defaulter to the amount of a million and a half of dollars! Other
charges having a similar bearing upon the integrity of Hamilton were
made, and the administration was most foully aspersed. The
speaker--acting, it was believed, under the influence of his superiors
in office--based his charges upon the letter of returns and other
treasury statements.

These charges were met by Hamilton in a calm and dignified report, which
ought to have disarmed malignity and made implacable party spirit hide
its head in shame. It was baffled for a moment, but not dismayed; and,
selecting points in the secretary's management of the financial
concerns of the government, the accuser already alluded to proceeded to
frame nine resolutions of censure, for which he asked the vote of the
house. The result was, says a careful and candid historian, "much to
raise the character of the secretary of the treasury, by c