When Giles went to the front in this war, both Jefferson and Madison were busy behind the firing line supplying munitions. Giles was elected in 1790 to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Theodorick Bland, and took his seat in the third session of the First Congress. The assumption bill had been passed, but that was only the first of the series of financial measures proposed by Hamilton, and Giles followed Madison's lead in unsuccessful resistance to the excise and to the national bank. Giles was re-elected to the Second Congress, which opened on October 24, 1791. In the course of this session he became the leader of the opposition, not by supplanting Madison but through willingness to take responsibilities from which Madison, like Jefferson, shrank, because he, too, preferred activity behind the scenes. This situation has often occurred in parliamentary history--a zealous party champion scouting the scruples and restraints that hampered the official leadership, and assuming an independent line of attack with the covert favor and assistance of that leadership. In the effort to crush Hamilton a series of raids was led by Giles, whose appetite for fighting could never be extinguished no matter how severe might be his defeat. After much preliminary skirmishing which put heavy tasks on Hamilton in the way of getting up reports and documents, a grand attack was made on January 23, 1793. A series of resolutions, in drafting which Madison and Jefferson took part, was presented, calling for minute particulars of all loans, names of all persons to whom payments had been made, statements of semi-monthly balances between the Treasury and the Bank, and an account of the sinking fund and of unexpended appropriations,--all from the beginning of the government until the end of 1792. The resolution required Hamilton to complete and state all the accounts of the Treasury Department up to a period only a little over three weeks before the resolutions were presented, and to give a detailed transcript of particulars. But the Treasury accounts were in such perfect order, and so great was Hamilton's capacity for work, that the information called for was promptly transmitted in reports dated February 4, February 13, and February 14. At the same time Hamilton hit back by observing that the resolutions "were not moved without a pretty copious display of the reasons on which they were founded," which "were of a nature to excite attention, to beget alarm, to inspire doubts."