Among the leading politicians of the epoch of which I speak, the preponderance in numbers, in wealth, in social position, and possibly in talent, was on the side of Hamilton; and when to these were added the commercial and numerous other classes interested in and dependent upon the money power then just rising into importance, an estimate may be formed of his ability to give tone and direction to the state and to society, and to cover with odium those who disapproved of his measures by charging them with personal hostility to Washington, who so well deserved the confidence and good will of all, and who enjoyed them to an extent that led John Adams, at a much later day, to stigmatize the deference paid to him as "impious homage." Hamilton wielded this great power with tremendous effect, for, although his judgment in the management of men was always deemed defective, he exerted, in the promotion of his particular objects, talents and industry which could not fail to produce great results. His activity and capacity for labor were not equaled by any of his contemporaries save Madison; his powers of persuasion and the effects of his eloquence were strikingly exemplified by his success in making Mr. Jefferson believe, on his first arrival at the seat of government from France, that the safety of the Union depended upon the passage of the bill for the assumption of the State debts, which had been at the moment rejected in the House of Representatives by a majority of one or two, and in inducing him to "hold the candle," as Jefferson afterwards described it, to a bargain by which Messrs. White and Lee, Southern members, were prevailed upon to vote for its reconsideration and passage on condition that Hamilton would get the requisite number of Northern members to vote for the establishment of the seat of the Federal Government on slave territory. Jefferson gives an interesting account of the earnestness of Hamilton's appeal to him on the subject, and of his own mortification and regret at having been made a party to so exceptionable a transaction in support of a measure he soon found the strongest reasons to condemn.[23] [23] Jefferson's _Correspondence_, Vol. 4. p. 449.