end.... Wadsworth hid his grief under the rim of a round hat. Boudinot's
wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed and
assumed a curve resembling a horse's shoe." The defeat did not discourage
Hamilton. He had successfully handled a more difficult situation in
getting New York to ratify the Constitution, and, resorting now to the
same means he had then employed, he used pressure of interest to move
those who could not be stirred by reason. The intense concern felt by
members in the choice of the site of the national capital supplied him
with the leverage which he brought to bear on the situation. Most of the
members were more stirred by that question than by any other before
Congress. It was a prominent topic in Madison's correspondence from the
time the Constitution was adopted. Maclay's diary abounds with references
to the subject. Some of his bitterest sentences are penned about the
conduct of those who preferred some other site to that on the Susquehanna
River which he knew to be the best because he lived there himself.
Bargaining among the members as to the selection had been going on almost
from the first. As early as April 26, 1789, before Washington had been
installed in his office, Maclay mentions a meeting "to concert some
measures for the removal of Congress." Thereafter notices of pending deals
appear frequently in his diary. After the defeat of the assumption bill,
the diary notes the activity of Hamilton in this matter. An entry of June
14, 1790, ascribes to Robert Morris the statement that "Hamilton said he
wanted one vote in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives;
that he was willing and would agree to place the permanent residence of
Congress at Germantown or Falls of the Delaware (Trenton), if he would
procure him those votes." Although definite knowledge is unattainable, one
gets the impression, in following the devious course of these intrigues,
that had Pennsylvania interests been united they could have decided the
site of the national capital; but the delegation was divided over the
relative merits of the Delaware and the Susquehanna as well as on