Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania regarded Hamilton's plans as wildly extravagant in their conception and iniquitous in their practical effect.

In his opinion, Hamilton had "a very boyish, giddy manner, and Scotch-Irish people could well call him a 'skite.'" Jackson of Georgia exposed to the House the folly of Hamilton's proposals by pointing out that a funded debt meant national decay.

He mentioned England as "a melancholy instance of the ruin attending such engagements." To such a pitch had the "spirit of funding and borrowing been carried in that country" that its national debt was now "a burthen which the most sanguine mind can never contemplate they will ever be relieved from." France also was "considerably enfeebled and languishes under a heavy load of debt." He argued that by funding the debt in America "the same effect must be produced that has taken place in other nations; it must either bring on national bankruptcy, or annihilate her existence as an independent empire." Such dismal prognostications on the very eve of the Napoleonic era, with its tremendous revelations of national power, were quite common at that time.

The long rambling debate that took place in the House when Hamilton's report was taken up for consideration abounds with similar instances of shortsightedness.

Many members did not scruple to advise repudiation, in whole or in part.