One summer evening in New York City, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison went over to

Thomas Jefferson's home for dinner.

It was 1790, so three years after the Constitution had been drafted, and the new government of

the United States was now underway.

New York City was the temporary capital during those years.

Congress met at Federal Hall near the tip of Manhattan down by Wall Street, and it was

there that Madison, who was now a congressman, had recently proposed the first round of

changes to the Constitution.

Congress had decided to pass ten of these suggested amendments, known as the Bill of Rights.

Jefferson was serving as the country's first secretariat state at the time, and he was

in charge of holding on to those four pages of parchment that the Constitution was written

on.

He had rented a house, a couple blocks from Federal Hall, on Maiden Lane.

If you looked down the cobblestone street from Jefferson's apartment, you could see

the tall ships docked at the seaport along the East River.

At dinner that June evening, as the sun sank late over the rooftops and sailors tied

up their boats along the waterfront, Hamilton and Madison tried to break a political impasse.

Hamilton, now the Treasury Secretary, wanted the national government to take over the

state's war debts, so the revolutionary war debts that each of the states had.

And that would have further consolidated federal power.

This was not a very popular idea among those in Congress who favored states' rights and

small government, but Madison was willing to help Hamilton out.

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