Note 52 — Chapter II · A SURVEY OF ECONOMIC INTERESTS IN 1787

Callender, not a very reliable authority on most matters concerning Hamilton, claims that twenty-five million dollars was made by the funding of the public debt, and that about ten millions more was made out of the state debt assumption process. He further declared that a public debt of eighty million dollars had been created of which only about thirty millions was all that was necessary. Gallatin held also that the unnecessary debt created by the assumption act amounted to about eleven million dollars. Callender, A History of the United States for 1796, pp. 224 ff. The ethics of redeeming the debt at face value is not here considered although the present writer believes that the success of the national government could not have been secured under any other policy than that pursued by Hamilton. Callender claims that those who held it were, in large measure, speculators and that they made huge fortunes out of the transaction. By a stroke of the pen the federal government created capital to the amount of millions in the hands of the holders.