"
Hamilton turned to Monroe.
"I made a mistake," said the Senator from Virginia. "I beg your pardon."
"And I shall hear no more of this?"
He received the solemn promise of each, then let them go. But he locked
the letters carefully in their drawer again.
"Are you going to keep those things?" asked Wolcott. "It must have made
you sick to listen to them."
"It did. Perhaps I shall keep them for penance, perhaps because I do not
trust Monroe."
XXXII
Hamilton was not long kept in ignorance of the next tactics of his
enemies. They made their deadliest assault soon after Christmas.
Immediately upon the assembling of Congress it was suggested that the
Secretary of the Treasury be asked to furnish a plan for reducing the
public debt. Madison arose and fired the first gun. What Congress
wanted was not a plan, but a statement of the national finances. The
Federalists replied that the information would come in due course, and
that the House was in duty bound to ask the Secretary to furnish a
scheme. The Republicans, led by Madison, protested that already too much
power had been invested in the Secretary of the Treasury, that it had
exceeded constitutional limits.
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