On the opening of the debate one champion of Assumption[254] let the cat out of the bag with the statement that ‘if the general Government has the payment of all the debts, it must of course have all the revenue, and if it possesses the whole revenue, it is equal, in other words, to the whole power.’ ‘Yes,’ cried the irrepressible Jackson in stentorian tones, ‘if it lulls the Shays of the North it will rouse the Sullivans of the South’—and the fight was on.
Almost immediately Assumption became confused with the whole system of funding, and a week after Madison had made his argument against the former, he was compelled to return to a defense of the latter, not as something he desired, but as a necessity imposed by unescapable conditions. Madison was too much of a statesman to be a demagogue.
Very soon, Maclay, watching the proceedings in the House with ferret eyes, thought he observed ‘the rendezvousing of the crew of the Hamilton galley.’ He found that ‘all hands are piped to quarters.’ The plan to force a vote on March 8th was abandoned toward evening, and that night he heard it was to await the arrival of Representative Vining of Delaware, and to give Hamilton time ‘to prepare him properly.’[255]
There was some mystery about Vining, and wild rumors were afloat that some one had said that he would give the new arrival a thousand guineas for his vote. ‘A thousand guineas,’ snorted Maclay, with a twinge in his gouty knee, ‘they could get him for a tenth that sum.’
Meanwhile, there was feverish activity among Hamilton’s supporters in Congress and out. Government officials left their desks to become lobbyists. The clergy turned politicians and solicited. The speculators were active. The members of the Cincinnati were mobilized and marched. Two Congressmen, one lame, the other sick, were carried to the House to meet a possible emergency. Another, planning to leave town, was ordered to his post.[256] The friends of Assumption were becoming uneasy. Letters in opposition were pouring in from men like Doctors Rush and Logan of Philadelphia and were being peddled about by Maclay to members of the Pennsylvania delegation. Alas, that he should have found ‘a woman in the room’ with old man Scott again.[257]
These activities so wrought upon the nerves of Robert Morris that he sought a new avenue of approach to his erratic colleague. Would Maclay join Morris in some land speculations? The former was suspicious, but interested.[258] For several days Morris talked land—the play continuing for eleven days. The debate was becoming bitter. The able, bitter-tongued Ædanus Burke of South Carolina made a ferocious attack on Hamilton, and the lobbies, coffee-houses, streets, buzzed with talk of a duel.[259]
The distress among Hamilton’s friends increased. In the Senate, shut off from the curious eyes of the public, feelings could be manifested with some abandon. Ellsworth and Izard ‘walked all the morning back and forward.’ Strong of Massachusetts and Paterson of New Jersey ‘seemed moved but not so much agitated.’ King ‘looked like a boy who had been whipped.’ And the hair on Schuyler, a heavy speculator and father-in-law of Hamilton, ‘stood on end as if the Indians had fired at him.’[260]
But courage was revived, and there was unwonted activity. Most of Washington’s household joined the lobby—Humphreys, Jackson, and Nelson, his secretaries—and were particularly attentive to Vining. This was the result of a caucus of Hamilton’s supporters the night before when the decision was reached to risk a vote.
Three days later, the chance was taken, and Hamilton lost by two votes. The scene was dramatic. Sedgwick made an ominous speech and, on being called to order, took his hat and left. ‘A funeral oration,’ sneered Maclay. When he returned he seemed to have been weeping. Even the eyes of the self-contained Fitzsimons ‘were brimming full’ as he went about ‘reddened like scarlet.’ Clymer, ‘always pale,’ was ‘deadly white,’ his lips quivering. But ‘happy impudence sat on Laurance’s brow.’ Wadsworth, who was financially interested, ‘hid his grief under the rim of a round hat,’ and Boudinot,[261] another speculator, left his distress naked to his enemies—‘his wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed and assumed a curve resembling a horse shoe.’[262]
The speculators poured out of the galleries and into the coffee-houses and taverns to relieve their feelings with oaths over a mug. The air was electric—and cause enough. Many speculators or their agents had been scouring the back country of the Carolinas and Georgia for months buying up State securities on the assumption that they would be funded. They had bet on a sure thing—and lost.