If they have involved themselves in debt, it is their misfortune, and they must extricate themselves as well as they can." On a later occasion Stone of Maryland, another State that lay outside the track of war, gave the leading war-debt States an admonition of the kind that adds insult to injury, saying "however inconvenient it may be to Massachusetts or South Carolina to make a bold exertion, and nobly bear the burthens of their present debt, I believe in the end it would be found to conduce greatly to their advantage." Burke made a crushing rejoinder.

"Was Maryland like South Carolina constantly grappling with the enemy during the whole war?
There is not a road in the State but has witnessed the ravages of war; plantations were destroyed, and the skeletons of houses, to this day, point out to the traveler the route of the British army; her citizens were exposed to every violence, their capital taken, and their country almost overrun by the enemy; men, women, and children murdered by the Indians and Tories; all the personal property consumed, and now is it to be wondered at that she is not able to make exertions equal with other States, who have been generally in an undisturbed condition ?" The argument pressed by the advocates of assumption was that the state debts contracted during the Revolutionary War were for the common defense, and that, unless these were assumed by the general government, the adoption of the new Constitution would do injury by withdrawing revenue resources which the States had formerly possessed.

This position at the present day seems reasonable enough, but it is certain that at that time people worked themselves into a genuine rage over the matter and were able to persuade themselves into a sincere belief that it was outrageous the unfortunate States should expect the others to bear their troubles, and that Hamilton was a great rogue for proposing such a scheme.

Writing in his private diary, Maclay characterized the plan as "a monument of political absurdity," and he was in the habit of referring to Hamilton's supporters as his "gladiators" and as a "corrupt squadron." On the whole the records make painful reading.

The prevailing tone of public life was one of dull and narrow provincialism, at times thickening into stupidity, at times sharpening into spite, although ordinarily made respectable by a serious attitude to life and by a stolid fortitude in facing whatever the distracted times might present.