Hamilton, sending a copy of the Virginia resolutions to Jay, saw "the first symptom of a spirit which must either be killed or will kill the Constitution of the United States." He thought the collective weight of the different parts of the Government ought to be employed in exploding the principles they contained. Theoretically, the Legislature of Virginia may have been correct in its attitude; but no theoretical protest could avail against the worthy sentiment that the entire national credit must be restored, backed by the practical demands of the creditors, and by the desires of those who saw an opportunity of investment or speculation. Those people, both officials and citizens, who took the stand in these formative days of political parties that the Federal Government should be restricted in its workings to the powers expressly given to it in the Constitution, a "strict construction" of that document, as they called it, were generally country bred, of the borrowing rather than the lending class, depending upon individual initiative rather than mass action, strangers to the paternal aspects and fostering hand of government, and inexperienced in the intricacies of finance. Gen. Henry Lee, of Virginia, complained to Madison of the complexity of Hamilton's plan. "It departs," replied Madison, "from that simplicity which ought to be preserved in finance more than anything else." Inability to comprehend naturally breeds suspicion. Hamilton's followers were, for the most part, from the Northern and Middle States, city dwellers, money-lenders rather than borrowers, business men, and manufacturers, who saw no wrong in having the Government promote the general welfare by legislation. The sudden revival of business which followed the adoption of Hamilton's plan to redeem all the debts seemed to them both natural and legitimate. The other group looked upon the entire matter as a corrupt transaction, contrived by Hamilton, and a prostitution of government from its legitimate purposes. Madison wrote that just before the report came out the value of the various forms of debt rose from a few shillings to eight or ten shillings in the pound, and that emissaries were still exploring the interior and distant parts of the Union in order to take advantage of the ignorance of the holders. To meet the occasion Jefferson invented the phrases, "corrupt squadron," "stock-jobbing herd," and "votaries of the treasury," upon which he rang the changes during a long lifetime.