New York City was the temporary capital of the United States in the early days of the United States, but after the official establishment of the United States of America, according to the provisions of the Constitution, a place must be re-selected as the official capital of the United States. In the process of selecting the site, the three major states of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were in fierce competition to choose their capital in their own states.
Meanwhile, Rep. Madison, from Virginia, was in a dilemma because of his opposition to Treasury Secretary Hamilton's fiscal plan. To address both issues, Secretary of State Jebison hosted a banquet at his home, invited Hamilton and Madison to negotiate privately, and finally reached an agreement that Madison would not oppose Hamilton's fiscal plan, and Hamilton abandoned his intention to build the capital in New York, supported Madison's proposal to build the capital in Virginia, and persuaded Pennsylvania to support Virginia's plan to build a capital.
Jefferson and Hamilton
Of course, Hamilton would have had a hard time convincing the Pennsylvania representative, but at this time the Pennsylvania representative had his own ideas. They believe that after Philadelphia is used as a temporary capital, it will be difficult to relocate, and it is not yet known when the new capital will be built, and it is not certain whether it will be built in the end. With New York already supporting Virginia, they had little chance of winning even if they were adamantly opposed, so they might as well take a step back and wait for further developments, and maybe in ten years Philadelphia would become the official capital.
Hamilton won the victory by supporting Madison over the selection of the capital, and in return, Madison persuaded Virginia to fully support Hamilton's financial plan. On July 26, the House voted 34:28 to pass the bill for a federal takeover of state debt, which is the basis and key to Hamilton's fiscal plan. Of course, Madison, who had always been a naysayer, still voted against it, but he did get other Virginia delegates to vote in favor, perhaps to avoid suspicion. In short, the bill passed.
James. Madison
The two big problems that had been debated endlessly were finally resolved, but most people knew that there was an exchange of interests involved, and a New York editor made it very clear in the newspaper: "The real reason for moving the capital out of the city (New York) is that pennsylvania and potomac river interests have been bought for $21.5 million." "$21.5 million is the total amount of state debt that the federal takes over (the total debt of the states is about $25 million, but some states have already repaid some of the debt at that time, so eventually the federal government took over $21.5 million).
Over the course of the deal, all but New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were deemed to have won. Needless to say, Pennsylvania believed that the capital would remain in Philadelphia permanently, not a temporary capital for a ten-year period. As the Philadelphia press declared: "It is absolutely counterintuitive to build a new city from scratch in a wild land covered with rocks, and the city only uses four months a year (Congressional meeting time)." ”
Independence Hall, Philadelphia
Virginia, on the other hand, believed they had won an all-out victory, starting with winning the new capital. Under the Capital Building Act passed in July, the new capital would be built on the Potomac River, with half of Virginia and Maryland each, and a 10-10 mile diamond-shaped land on both sides of the Potomac River to create a new city.
Originally, according to Jefferson's plan, the new city would be built not far from the mouth of the Potomac River. But because Washington's Mount Vernon was close to the area and had a large amount of land here, Jefferson seemed to notice that Washington was reluctant to sell his land; coupled with the fact that some Pennsylvanians believed that the new city should be chosen near Pennsylvania, So In the end Jebison abandoned the sea mouth and chose a place in the middle from the mouth of the Potomac River to Pennsylvania.
The capital location chosen by Jefferson
At the same time, at madison's urging that the debt takeover, which virginians were most concerned about, Hamilton made a compromise by clearing the debt before taking over the debt, and through clever data processing, the last tax that the states were allocated to the federal government was almost exactly equal to the debt that was taken over. That is to say, the so-called debt takeover is actually still borne by the states, only nominally by the federal government, so that Virginia, which has paid off a large amount of debt, does not have to bear more responsibility to the federal government.
In short, the biggest beneficiary of this covert transaction belongs to Virginia. But even so, there were still some people who opposed the debt takeover, and although Madison agreed to the plan under the persuasion of Jackie, James. Monroe – Another loyal follower of Jefferson insisted on his views and reminded Him that the compromise was likely to have extremely serious consequences and would be a "lethal poison" for Virginia.
James. Monroe
James. Monroe, the only casualty of the Continental Army in the Battle of Trenton, a key battle in the Revolutionary War, had become an important figure in Virginian politics by this time, but Monroe did not explain to Jefferson what the consequences would be, perhaps he himself could not say clearly, just a feeling. So instead of heeding Monroe's reminder, Jefferson explained to Monroe that he also thought the compromise was obnoxious, but that if it were not done, the Union would cease to exist, the states would go their own way, and the United States of America would face two outcomes, the good one would be peaceful division, and the bad one would be caught in civil war.
"If you don't make that compromise, there's going to be an even worse outcome." Jefferson wrote in a letter to Monroe.
But only two years later, as things unfolded, Jefferson finally discovered that Monroe was right. He told Washington in 1792 that supporting the debt takeover plan was his greatest mistake, and that he had agreed to it only because of concerns about the collapse of the Union, but had inadvertently fallen into Hamilton's trap, giving the federal government complete control over the state's taxation power, and ultimately putting the federal government's power above the state government.
The power relationship between the U.S. federation and the state
Yes, that's the fundamental difference in views between Jefferson and Hamilton. While Jefferson advocated a federal government with limited power, pursuing a "small government" model in which states had more power than federal power, Hamilton believed that a centralized federal government should be established, and that putting the power of the states under the union was the fundamental way for the development of the country.
Of the nearly two hundred countries in the world today, 28 are federal, accounting for about 15 percent of the total. So quantitatively, federalism is not a mainstream state system. This is because in the traditional understanding of mankind, the state means the concentration of power, and a strong central government can maintain the stability and development of the country, starting from the slave society that produced the rudiments of the state, all the way to the feudal society, capitalist society, and even socialist society, in most of the time the state power is concentrated, and the difference is only in the hands of whom.
The main federal state in the world today
But more than two hundred years ago, when the United States, the world's first emerging federalist state, was born, there was a debate about whose state power belonged to. Bourgeois democrats such as Jefferson, who uphold "natural human rights", believe that since power belongs to the people, the federation based on the states should not have state power, so power should belong to the states established on the basis of the people, that is, sovereignty is in the states.
Hamilton, on the other hand, was born in the Caribbean, a model of a typical dick counterattack, and his life experience made him deeply feel the importance of power. When the United States, after winning the War of Independence, plunged the country into chaos and disorder due to the states' own, he united Madison and John. Jay et al. convened a constituent assembly to formulate the Constitution of 1787, and subsequently published the Federalist Papers, prompting the states to adopt the constitutions. Therefore, it can be said that the United States of America, which was established under the Constitution, is Hamilton's greatest spiritual pillar, and if the federal government exists in name only because the states decentralize federal power, it will undoubtedly be a fatal blow to him.
(Long series, to be continued)