What convinced the southerners to agree to help pay the national debt in the late 1790s?

Answer 1

The action that led the Southerners to compromise on the national debt was that they had to pay a lot of money to the northern states to make a deal they wanted to move the capital to the southern part of the United States which is now WashingtonD.C.

(The 1st president George Washington's capitol was in New York instead of D.C.)

Answer 2

The Southern states compromised on the United States assuming the war debts of the individual states in return for placing the nation's capital in a southern state. According to Joseph Ellis in his book "Founding Brothers", it came about as part of a deal between Alexander Hamilton a Federalist who wanted the national government to assume state war debts) and James Madison (a democratic republican who did not want the new government to take on the states' debts). The other big issue at the time was where the new capital should be located. Northern states wanted it in the north and southern states wanted it in the south. Thomas Jefferson got Hamilton and Madison together and they made a deal that whereby the southern states agreed to let the nation take on the state debts as long as the capital was located in the south. Jefferson later felt that trading the site of the capital for assumption of the debt was one of the worst mistakes he ever made.

Answer 3

The compromise brokered between Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison, that the Nation's capital should be situated in the 'southern' part of the US. That compromise led to the Residence Act, situating the future capital on a site bordering the Potomac.