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"I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices, of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the union."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1818


Almost 30 years after their famous compromise on the federal assumption of Revolutionary War debt of the individual states and establishing the District of Columbia as the site of the permanent federal capital, Jefferson recalled the event in a document he titled “The Anas.” He claimed he was tricked and the agreement he made with Hamilton was one of the worst decisions he had ever made.

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