Note 944 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
"The payments from the States under the calls of Congress have in no year borne any proportion to the public wants. During the last year ... the aggregate payments ... fell short of 400,000 dollrs, a sum neither equal to the interest due on the foreign debts, nor even to the current expenses of the federal Government. The greatest part of this sum too went from Virga, which will not supply a single shilling the present year." (Madison to Jefferson, March 18, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 228.)