Hamilton was not long kept in ignorance of the next tactics of his enemies. They made their deadliest assault soon after Christmas. Immediately upon the assembling of Congress it was suggested that the Secretary of the Treasury be asked to furnish a plan for reducing the public debt. Madison arose and fired the first gun. What Congress wanted was not a plan, but a statement of the national finances. The Federalists replied that the information would come in due course, and that the House was in duty bound to ask the Secretary to furnish a scheme. The Republicans, led by Madison, protested that already too much power had been invested in the Secretary of the Treasury, that it had exceeded constitutional limits. Moreover, he overwhelmed them with volumes, deliberately calculated to confuse t
