the question of assumption. Hamilton's efforts in this quarter were
ineffectual, and the winning combination was finally arranged elsewhere
and otherwise by the aid of Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson was at this time forty-seven years old, and owing both to
seniority and to the distinguished positions he had held, he ranked as the
most illustrious member of the Administration. His correspondence at this
period shows that he was fully aware of the importance of the crisis, and
he did not overrate it when he wrote to James Monroe, June 20, 1790, that,
unless the measures of the Administration were successful, "our credit
will burst and vanish, and the States separate to take care everyone of
itself." In this letter Jefferson outlined the compromise that was
actually adopted by Congress. The strongest opposition to the assumption
bill had come from Virginia, although Maryland, Georgia, and New Hampshire
also opposed it, and the Middle States were divided. Jefferson was able to
get enough Southern votes to carry assumption in return for enough votes
from Hamilton's adherents to carry the Potomac site. An agreement was
reached at a dinner given by Jefferson to which he invited Hamilton and
Madison. According to this arrangement, the capital was to remain in
Philadelphia for ten years and after that to be on the Potomac River in a
district ten miles square to be selected by the President. The residence
act was approved July 16, 1790; the funding and assumption measures, now
combined in one bill, became law on August 4.

After Jefferson turned against the Administration, his participation in
the passage of the assumption bill was such an awkward circumstance that
he discredited his own intelligence by professing that he "was most
ignorantly and innocently made to hold the candle" to Hamilton's "game."
In reality the public service Jefferson then performed was the most useful
in all his long and fruitful career. But for this action, the Declaration