| Existing comment:
* The federal government would take over any debts individual states carried from the Revolutionary War. Hamilton felt that, by pooling these debts into a single, national one, the United States could establish credit with other countries and use the borrowed money to build its economy. Opponents, including James Madison and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, argued that those states that had already paid their debts (in part because they did not pay wages for slave labor) would be punished for their financial responsibility. |