The mercantile class of the Northern and Central States, after Anti- Federalism had been silenced by the success of the new Government, was ready to adopt the theory of loose construction or interpretation by inclusion, which would tend toward the realisation of a more potent union. At the same time, a bank, supported by the patronage of the National Government, with no danger of competition for twenty years, offered not only a security for capital against such dangers as it had previously known, but also, through its branches, an extended agency for transacting business. Many details of the bill, such as the advantages given to holders of national rather than State certificates in subscribing for stock, contributed to the sectional division. The national certificates were held in the commercial centres. The influence of the city of New York, where the Congress met, no doubt contributed to the passage of the bank and other commercial measures. Precisely the opposite feelings held in the Southern States. Every vote cast in the House against the bank came from Maryland or a State to the south of it. There were a few scattering votes from the Southern States in favour of the measure, but as a whole political lines were here unconsciously drawn for a century to come, if not for the entire existence of the Republic. The "court and country" parties of colonial days had been born again. Many of the members were surprised to find sentiment toward these financial measures assuming such a sectional trend. Sectional interests had been only too manifest in the convention, but compromises had settled them, presumably for ever. Compromise is only a relief; it is never a remedy. After each compromise in American history it has been a matter of surprise to the participants that others were needed. On the bank bill, a member wrote to a correspondent: "You may think it unaccountable, but so it is that the differences in climate seem to govern the opinions on this bill, and Potomac seems to be near the dividing line with few exceptions." Virginia was the leader of the section south of the Potomac, and Jefferson was the leader of Virginia. Although debarred from the congressional debates by his Cabinet position, he filled his letters to his friends with warnings against the dangerous assumptions of the Hamilton measures. In response to Washington's inquiry to his Cabinet upon the constitutionality of the bank, Jefferson drew up a paper setting forth in strong terms his opinion that the Central Government had no power to engage in business. Hamilton presented an equally strong argument for the bank in his reply.