The significance and importance of the public credit he understood from first-hand knowledge, for his holdings of public securities were large when compared with the average holdings in the South. Shortly after the establishment of Hamilton’s funding system, Pinckney is credited with over ten thousand dollars’ worth of sixes and threes on the loan office books of his state.[[337]]

Charles Pinckney, like his distinguished cousin, was also an eminent lawyer in Charleston and enjoyed a large practice with the merchants. He was likewise a land-owner on a considerable scale, for the census of 1790 records the number of his slaves as fifty-two.[[338]]

Charles Pinckney was also identified with the conservative forces of the state in their fight against the debtor or paper money party, and he thoroughly understood the meaning of the sacredness of private and public obligations. He was a holder of government securities on a large scale, his transactions early in the history of the new system amounting to more than fourteen thousand dollars.[[339]] In common with the men of his party he naturally feared the effect of popular lawmaking upon the value of personalty.[[340]]

Edmund Randolph was a grandson of Sir John Randolph, an English gentleman of ancient and honorable lineage. Through an uncle he inherited “three farms ... negroes, and other property;” but this estate was burdened with debt.[[341]] As a lawyer, however, he enjoyed a magnificent practice which furnished him a considerable revenue. When charged with having defrauded the Treasury of the United States during his official service as Secretary of State, he advanced as a counter claim the fact that the condition of his fortune was evidence that he could not have engrossed any large government funds. He reported on that occasion (1801) that in money claims he had £14,200 Virginia currency which he traced “to the best of all resources, the independent labors of my own hands.”[[342]] About that time, his other property which had come to him by way of inheritance amounted to “some seven thousand acres of land, several houses, and near two hundred negroes. The slaves had long been an incumbrance on account of his refusal to sell their increase and his inability while at Philadelphia to hire them properly.”[[343]]

Indeed, Randolph was apparently never very prosperous. He held ten or fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of public securities about the time of the establishment of the new government;[[344]] but he seems to have been in debt to Hamilton for a considerable sum that gave him some embarrassment. On April 23, 1793, he wrote to Hamilton asking an extension of time on the paper, saying: “I am extremely thankful to you for your readiness to accommodate me on the subject of the bills.... The sum which I want to sell is much less than £2600 stg. It is only £1300; as I prefer waiting for a rise....”[[345]]

George Read, of Delaware, was the grandson of a “wealthy citizen of Dublin.” His father had migrated to America and established himself as “a respectable planter” in Delaware. George studied law under John Moland, a distinguished attorney in Philadelphia, and began business for himself in Newcastle in 1754 where he soon acquired a lucrative practice.[[346]] Although he surrendered all claim to his father’s estate on the ground that he had received his portion in his education,[[347]] Read managed to accumulate a modest competence.

Of his economic position, so far as it was reflected in his style of living, a descendant writes: “The mansion of Mr. Read commanded an extensive view of the river Delaware.... It was an old-fashioned brick structure, looking very comfortable but with no pretensions to elegance.... Here Mr. Read resided for many years in the style of the colonial gentry who, when having no more than the moderate income of Mr. Read, maintained a state and etiquette which have long disappeared.... How could this be, Mr. Read not being affluent? His income would buy more then than now, and he had a small farm ... and besides he generally owned his servants.” In addition to his income from official positions and his practice, Read possessed some capital for investment, because he appears among the subscribers to the stock of the Bank of North America issued in 1784.[[348]]

A small part of his worldly goods he had invested in the securities of the Continental Congress in 1779, during the dark days of the Revolution when the chances of ever recovering it were slight indeed. He was among those who risked their lives and fortunes in the Revolutionary cause, and has the honor of being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The loan office of Delaware records that in March and April, 1779, Read subscribed for $2000 worth of certificates, and that Mary Read subscribed for $11,500 worth of the same paper.[[349]] The incompleteness of the records of Delaware in the Treasury department prevents the tracing of these securities, but an entry of 1797 shows Read as holding a small account (old) of threes.[[350]] At all events, Read had felt personally the inconveniences of depreciated paper, and knew the value of a stable government to every owner of personal property.

John Rutledge, of South Carolina, was the son of Dr. John Rutledge, a native of Ireland who settled in Carolina about 1735. He was educated under a classical tutor and pursued the study of law in the Temple. He opened his practice in Charleston in 1761, and a biographer relates that “instead of rising by degrees to the head of his profession, he burst forth at once the able lawyer and accomplished scholar. Business flowed in upon him. He was employed in the most difficult causes and retained with the largest fees that were usually given.”[[351]]

Rutledge was elected president of South Carolina, under the first constitution, and when a new frame of government was made by the legislature, in some respects more democratic, he vetoed it, preferring “a compound or mixed government to a simple democracy, or one verging towards it.”[[352]] “However unexceptionable democratic power may appear at first view,” said Rutledge, “its defects have been found arbitrary, severe, and destructive.”