Hamilton’s role in the Bank of New York was nothing compared to what he accomplished as secretary of the treasury in Washington’s first term, when the federal capital was temporarily located in Manhattan. In 1790, he presented a plan to have the federal government assume the states’ Revolutionary War debts, paying for them with interest-bearing federal bonds, backed by a tariff and an excise tax on whiskey. Despite fierce resistance by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Congress enacted the program. The new federal bonds—known as “the Stock”—essentially created the securities market in New
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