Thomas Jefferson Dinner Summary

The Dinner begins with Thomas Jefferson’s account of the Compromise of 1790. Jefferson explains that Hamilton comes to him discouraged that his fiscal policy was being blocked, with most of that opposing force coming from Madison. In order to help them resolve this issue, Jefferson invited them to a dinner, where a compromise was reached; Madison would leave the assumption bill to its fate, and Hamilton would ensure that the Nation’s capital would lie along the Potomac. The assumption bill passed, and construction for the nation’s capital began along the Potomac. However, Jefferson’s story precipitates several question: was the affair really that simple, and why were these three men so fearful of the nation’s future? Ellis takes us through
But what about the Residency bill? What had happened to this bill that Madison was so adamant should pass. It turns out that the dinner that Jefferson hosted was one out of several secret meetings that took place, and one of which was a deal between the Virginian and Pennsylvanian delegates, in which the temporary capital would move to Philadelphia and a permanent location would be constructed along the Potomac. The reason the Pennsylvanians agreed was that they thought that, once the capital moved, it would never again. Jefferson and Madison knew that if the residence bill ever came up again, it would never pass, and so they immediately set out to find a tract of land. But how were they to get the funding and approval without going through congress? They followed the advice of one New York reporter: Have the president himself pick it out, and that they did. Also, Madison received another bonus; Virginia got settlement before assumption, which meant that they would pay an adjusted tax ($3.5 million instead of $5 million). This chapter shows the extremely intertwined relationships the Founding Fathers had, and reinforces the reason why Ellis chose the wording Founding Brothers for the