In the summer of 1790, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton sat down to a private dinner in New York that helped break a crippling congressional deadlock. This episode explores the Compromise of 1790, the bargain that placed the national capital on the Potomac and established the American financial system.

We unpack Hamilton’s plan for federal assumption of state war debts, Southern resistance led by Madison, and the fight over where the capital should be. We also weigh Jefferson’s own account against modern analyses by historians Max M. Edling, Jacob Cooke, and Kenneth R. Bowling, and trace the deal’s ironic long-term consequences.

• Why Hamilton’s assumption plan alarmed Virginia and other Southern states
• How federal bonds and import tariffs tied wealthy investors to the new government
• The terms of the dinner table bargain, including the Potomac capital and a debt adjustment for Virginia
• The historian debate over whether the dinner truly broke the deadlock
• How Hamilton’s credit system later helped fund the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812