Washington [444]
In the fall of 1790 he brought to Philadelphia Harriot’s two unruly brothers, George Steptoe and Lawrence Augustine, who entered the College of Philadelphia (afterward the University of Pennsylvania). The status-conscious president wrote the boys long-winded letters about being clean and presentable and shying away from bad company—suggesting that his ungovernable nephews did neither. Although he footed the bill for their education, he did not invite them to stay in the presidential mansion, either from a shortage of space or because the mischievous boys lacked proper decorum. In writing to Betty, he revealed how financially strapped he felt in caring for Samuel’s three children: “I shall continue to do for [Harriot] what I have already done for seven years past and that is to furnish her with such reasonable and proper necessaries as she may stand in need of, notwithstanding I have had both her brothers upon my hands, and I have been obliged to pay several hundred pounds out of my own pocket for their boards, schooling, clothing etc.”22 Washington’s family munificence was all the more commendable in view of his financial difficulties. The two brothers must have matured in Philadelphia and outgrown their youthful indiscretions, for Washington later rewarded them handsomely in his will.
ON DECEMBER 14, 1790, Alexander Hamilton issued another electrifying state paper, this time on the need to charter the first central bank in American history. Capitalized at $10 million, the Bank of the United States would blend public and private ownership; the government would take a 20 percent stake and private investors the remaining 80 percent. This versatile institution would lend money to the government, issue notes that could serve as a national currency, and act as a repository for tax payments. The bank was patterned after the Bank of England—Hamilton kept its charter on his desk as he wrote—and coming on the heels of his report on public credit and excise taxes, it unsettled opponents with the insidious specter of a British-style executive branch.
Five weeks later the bank bill passed the Senate with deceptive ease, prompting Madison to marshal stiff opposition in the House. Once again the southern states feared that Hamilton’s system would consolidate northern financial hegemony over agrarian southern interests. Madison responded boldly to the views of his dismayed constituents. Where he had articulated a broad view of federal power as coauthor of The Federalist, he now balked at what he deemed a dangerous extension of that power. In the Constitution he could find no specific license for a central bank—in his evocative phrase, the bank bill “was condemned by the silence of the Constitution.” 23 In defiance of his determined efforts, the bill passed the House on February 8 by a margin of 39 to 20. In an omen of future strife, the vote again divided sharply along geographic lines: the northern states were almost solidly for the bank, and the southern states were largely lined up against it. To skittish southerners, the treasury secretary seemed triumphant and unstoppable in his quest for centralized power, rolling out programs in rapid