The arguments presented
by him to Congress for the incorporation of a bank in which the National
Government should be a stockholder were purely utilitarian. The bank
would benefit the public by offering an opportunity for the investment
of capital. It would benefit the Government by lending it money in an
emergency and by collecting its revenues. Its notes would also form
a circulating medium. The bill drawn by Hamilton incorporating such
a bank passed the Senate without material change and without a division.
One Senator from Pennsylvania, suggesting amendments to his colleague,
was informed that Hamilton's father-in-law, a Senator from New York,
had said Hamilton did not wish the bill altered. The hopeless minority
in the Senate claimed that the chances of subscribing to the proposed
bank, guaranteeing an investment at six per cent, for twenty years,
won many to its support. They also saw here another link in the chain
which Hamilton was welding about the States. The debts having been
assumed, the certificates would be accepted as subscriptions to bank
stock. Thus one measure would be made to play into another.
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