Compromise of 1790

1790 bargain between U. S. politicians to resolve the national debt and the capital's location
The Compromise of 1790 was a compromise among Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, where Hamilton won the decision for the national government to take over and pay the state debts, and Jefferson and Madison obtained the national capital, called the District of Columbia, for the South. This agreement resolved the deadlock in Congress. Southerners had been blocking the assumption of state debts by the Department of the Treasury, thereby destroying the Hamiltonian program for building a fiscally strong federal government. Northerners rejected the proposal, much desired by Southerners, to locate the permanent national capital on the Virginia–Maryland border. The meeting, which was organized by Thomas Jefferson, was attended only by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Jefferson, which led to speculation about what was talked about. The compromise made possible the passage of the Residence Act and Funding Act of 1790 in July and August 1790. According to historian Jacob Cooke, it is "generally regarded as one of the most important bargains in American history, ranking just below the better known Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850."

Historian Max M. Edling says that assumption worked by using the location of the capital as a bargaining ploy. Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal Treasury take over and pay off the debt states had incurred to pay for the American Revolutionary War. The Treasury would issue bonds that rich people would buy, thereby giving the rich a tangible stake in the success of the national government. Hamilton proposed to pay off the new bonds with revenue from a new tariff on imports. Jefferson originally approved the scheme, but Madison had turned him around by arguing that federal control of debt would consolidate too much power in the national government. Edling pointed out that after its passage in 1790, the assumption was accepted. James Madison tried to pay speculators below 100%, but they were paid the face value of the state debts they held regardless of how little they had paid for them. When Jefferson became president, he continued the system. The credit of the U. S. was solidly established at home and abroad, and Hamilton was successful in signing up many of the bondholders in his new Federalist Party. Good credit allowed Thomas Jefferson's Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, to borrow in Europe to finance the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and to borrow to finance the War of 1812.

The compromise is dramatized in the musical Hamilton by Lin Manuel Miranda in the song "The Room Where It Happens", which tells the story from the perspective of Aaron Burr.