One of the effects of "assumption" would be to distribute the collective debt burden among all the states, the more solvent members paying a share of the more indebted ones. Most of the southern states, except for South Carolina, had successfully paid down the bulk of their wartime debt. Virginia, relatively debt-free, led the fight against 'assumption." Madison argued that the proposed national tax would overburden Virginia planters operating on a narrow margin of profit. Requiring solvent states to contribute to states suspected of mismanaging their fiscal affairs was deemed unjust.