ABSTRACT
After Washington was inaugurated as President in 1789, he established the executive departments of state, war, and the treasury, and the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
were adopted by Congress and dispatched to the state legislatures. Alexander Hamilton, as Treasury Secretary, introduced policies which rekindled or kept burning the Federalist versus anti-Federalist controversy which began during the ratification debate over the Constitution. New fiscal policies such as the Funding Bill, the Assumption Bill, the establishment of the Bank of the United States, and an im port tax, all generated heated discourse. Hamilton’s ideas generated such differences of opinion that proto-political parties (factions, loosely aggregated interests) developed focusing around Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the Republican (later the D em ocrat) Party, and Hamilton and John Adams, the leaders of the Federalist Party.
