REMOVAL OF THE GOVERNMENT.

I.

THERE was no subject before the first Congress which produced a deeper feeling or more warm debate than that of the permanent establishment of the seat of government. On the twenty-first of October, 1783, the old Congress, insulted at Philadelphia by a band of mutineers whom the state authorities were unable to put down, adjourned to Princeton, where it occupied the halls of the college, and finally to New York, where it assembled in the beginning of 1785. The question continued in debate, not only in Congress, but in the public journals and private correspondence of all parts of the country, and was brought before the convention for forming the Constitution, at Philadelphia, but by that body referred to the federal legislature. It was justly considered that extraordinary advantages would accrue to any city which might become the capital of the nation, and it is not surprising, therefore, that a sectional controversy arose which for a time threatened the most disastrous consequences. The eastern states would have been satisfied with the retention of the public business in New York, but Pennsylvania wished it to be conducted on the banks of the Delaware, and Maryland and Virginia, supported very generally by the more southern states, were not less anxious that the legislative centre of the republic should be on the Potomac.

Efforts were made to postpone the consideration of the subject another year, but against this all the southern parties protested, as New York in the mean time would be likely to strengthen her influence, and it was contended that the danger of selecting any large city was already apparent in the feeling manifested in favor of the present metropolis by persons whose constituents were unanimously opposed to it. Dr. Rush, in a letter to General Muhlenberg, after the passage of a bill in the House of Representatives for the establishment of the seat of government on the banks of the Susquehanna, wrote, "I rejoice in the prospect of Congress leaving New York; it is a sink of political vice;" and again, "Do as you please, but tear Congress away from New York in any way; do not rise without effecting this business." Other persons, whose means of judging were much better than those of Dr. Rush, believed with Wolcott, that "honesty was in fashion" here, and Mr. Page, a member from Virginia, sagacious, moral, and without local interests except in his own state, declared that New York was superior to any place he knew "for the orderly and decent behavior of its inhabitants." As to Philadelphia, the South Carolinians found an objection in her Quakers, who, they said, "were eternally dogging southern members with their schemes of emancipation."

There was another very exciting proposition at the same time before Congress, respecting which the supporting interests were in a different direction; the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia, were nearly as much opposed to the assumption of the state debts, as New England and New York were to establishing the seat of government in such a position that nine of the thirteen states should be north of it; and Mr. Hamilton, setting an example of compromises for the germinating statesman of Kentucky, then a pupil of the venerable Wythe, proposed an arrangement which resulted in the selec tion for federal purposes of Conogocheague, on the Potomac, now

known as the District of Columbia. Hamilton and Robert Morris, both strong advocates for the financial measure, agreed that if some of the southern members were gratified as to the location of the national capital, they might be willing to yield the other point, and two or three votes would be sufficient to change the majority in the House of Representatives. Mr. Jefferson had not been long in the city; he was ignorant of the secrets of its diplomacy; and complains that he was most innocently made to "hold the candle" to this intrigue, "being duped into it," as he says, "by the Secretary of the Treasury, and made a tool of for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood." Congress had met and adjourned, from day to day, without doing any thing. The members were too much out of humor to do business together. As Jefferson was on his way to the President's, one morning, he met in the street Hamilton, who walked him backwards and forwards in Broadway for half an hour, describing the temper of the legislature, the disgust of the creditor states, as they were called, and the danger of disunion, ending with an appeal for his aid and coöperation, as a member of the cabinet, in calming an excitement and settling a question which threatened the very existence of the government. Jefferson proposed that Hamilton should dine with him the next evening, and promised to invite another friend or two, thinking it "impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the Union." The meeting and the discussion took place, and it was finally decided that two of the Virginia members who had opposed that measure should support the assumption bill, and that, to allay any excitement which might thus be produced, Hamilton and Morris should bring sufficient influence from the north to insure the permanent establishment of the government on the Potomac, after its continuance in Philadelphia for