Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/274

Efforts were made to postpone the consideration of the subject another year, but against this all the southern parties protested, as New York in the mean time would be likely to strengthen her influence, and it was contended that the danger of selecting any large city was already apparent in the feeling manifested in favor of the present metropolis by persons whose constituents were unanimously opposed to it. Dr. Rush, in a letter to General Muhlenberg, after the passage of a bill in the House of Representatives for the establishment of the seat of government on the banks of the Susquehanna, wrote, "I rejoice in the prospect of Congress leaving New York; it is a sink of political vice;" and again, "Do as you please, but tear Congress away from New York in any way; do not rise without effecting this business." Other persons, whose means of judging were much better than those of Dr. Rush, believed with Wolcott, that "honesty was in fashion" here, and Mr. Page, a member from Virginia, sagacious, moral, and without local interests except in his own state, declared that New York was superior to any place he knew " for the orderly and decent behavior of its inhabitants." As to Philadelphia, the South Carolinians found an objection in her Quakers, who, they said, "were eternally dogging southern members with their schemes of emancipation."

There was another very exciting proposition at the same time before Congress, respecting which the supporting interests were in a different direction; the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia, were nearly as much opposed to the assumption of the state debts, as New England and New York were to establishing the seat of government in such a position that nine of the thirteen states should be north of it; and Mr. Hamilton, setting an example of compromises for the germinating statesman of Kentucky, then a pupil of the venerable Wythe, proposed an arrangement which resulted in the selection for federal purposes of Conogocheague, on the Potomac, now