nation was some 74 millions 1. or about as much per head as the annual expenses of government a century later. 377. All this was vigorous financiering. American credit was established at a stroke. Confidence returned at home. Money came out of hiding, and we entered upon an era of business prosperity. Daniel Webster afterward said, in a great oration, that Hamilton "smote the rock of national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of national credit, and it sprung upon its feet." (Cf. § 324.) But it was more than mere financiering. Hamilton cared as much for the political results as for the financial. He saw that these measures would be "a powerful cement to union" "by arraying property on the side of the new government." Especially was this true of assumption. If that part of the plan had failed, then all holders of State bonds would have been inclined to oppose national taxation as a hindrance to State taxation — whereby they themselves would have had to be paid. After "assumption" carried, all such creditors were transformed into ardent advocates of the new government and of every extension of its powers; because the stronger it grew and the more it taxed, the safer their own private fortunes. The commercial forces of the country were consolidated behind the new government. ton. Jefferson soon regretted bitterly his aid to this centralizing force, and complained that (just back from France) he had been tricked by Hamil"Hamilton's system," said he, "flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calculated to undermine the Republic." And Maclay wrote during the contest, "The Secretary's people scarce disguise their design, which is to create a mass of debts which will justify them in seizing all the [re]sources of government, thus annihilating the State legislatures and creating an empire on the basis of consolidation." 378. The victory of "assumption" made a larger revenue Another part of Hamilton's plan dealt with this necessary. 1 Several arrangements made it really less than this. Some of the domes tic debt was paid in wild lands. § 379] THE WHISKY REBELLION 325 need. In accord with his recommendations, duties were increased slightly on goods imported from abroad; and, in 1791, Congress imposed a heavy "excise on spirits distilled at home. To-day such an excise falls, first upon large distilleries, which pay the tax and then collect it again from the "ultimate consumer " in increased price.' But, in that time, whisky, a universal drink, was manufactured in countless petty "stills" scattered over the country, especially in the poorer western counties, where the farmer could not market his grain in any other way. These small producers in the western districts rarely saw much currency; and they felt it a cruel hardship to have to pay the tax, particularly in advance of marketing the whisky. 2 379. The legislatures of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania passed vehement resolutions condemning the law; and in four western counties of Pennsylvania the United States officials were driven out or set at nought for three years, by methods that make a curious parody upon the methods toward English officials in the years before the Battle of Lexington. This was the Whisky Rebellion. Finally, under Hamilton's advice, Washington marched 15,000 militia from neighboring States into the insurgent counties, and obedience was restored. The most important result of the whisky tax was not the increased revenue, but this demonstration that the new government was able and determined to enforce its laws.3 1 Tariffs and excises are indirect taxes (one external, the other internal) paid in the first instance by importer or manufacturer, but in the end by the people who buy and use the goods. 2 A pack-horse could carry not more than four bushels of grain; but, reduced to the form of whisky, he could carry twenty-four bushels. Western Pennsylvania is said to have had 3000 stills. The student will know something of the modern feeling against the excise in the mountain districts of Southern States. 8 The Whisky Rebellion is worth a special report. It was the first rebellion against the Federal government. (Compare with Shays' Rebellion against a State.) Two leaders were tried for treason and condemned to death, 380. Hamilton also persuaded Congress to incorporate a National Bank. The government held part of the stock, and named some of the managing Board. In return, the Bank acted as the agent of the government in securing loans, and took care of the national funds. In other respects, it was like other banks, receiving deposits, issuing paper notes (which made a much-needed currency), transferring credits and cash from one part of the country to another, and making loans on suitable security. Critics soon pointed out a danger that a bank connected with the government might exert tremendous political influence for the party in power by granting or refusing loans. But banking facilities had been meager; and the convenience of this institution bound the commercial classes still more closely to the new government. 381. The creation of the Bank led to the doctrine of "implied powers" in the Constitution (§ 347). To create a corporation is not among the powers "enumerated" for Congress. Indeed, efforts to include that particular power had been defeated in the Philadelphia Convention. Hamilton, however, insisted that the authority was given by the "necessary and proper" clause (§ 348). "Necessary," he urged, meant only "suitable"; and a national bank would be a suitable and convenient means to carry out the enumerated powers of borrowing money and caring for national finances. After serious hesitation, Washington signed the bill. He had invited opinions from Jefferson as well as from Hamilton (§ 370); and the debate between the two great Secretaries began the dispute as to "strict construction" and "loose" or "broad" construction of the Constitution. EXERCISE. - Review Hamilton's financial plan, making out an abstract of its various parts in the form of a "brief." Review carefully §§ 345348 in connection with § 381. but they were pardoned by Washington. Happily, the nation has never imposed a death penalty for political opposition. 1 There was a central bank at Philadelphia, with branches in other leading cities. CHAPTER XXXIV NORTH AND SOUTH 382. From the first, the serious contests under the new government were sectional. The conflicts upon assumption, the tariff, the Bank, had all been conflicts between North and South, commercial section and agricultural section. This sectionalism was intensified by the slavery question. In the North, and as far south as through Virginia, antislavery sentiment was gradually growing. Some States had abolished slavery; some were making arrangements for gradual emancipation; others had at least forbidden importation of slaves. In the first session of the First Congress, a Virginia representative moved a national tax of ten dollars a head upon all slaves imported into any State. After a bitter debate the matter was dropped. At the next session, petitions were presented from two Pennsylvania societies praying Congress to use its "constitutional powers" to limit slavery and protect the Negro. The resulting debate was as fierce as any in our history, bristling with vituperation and with threats of secession; and the House finally adopted resolutions declaring that it had no "constitutional power" to interfere with the treatment of slaves, or to abolish slavery, within any State. 383. The next move came from the South in a demand for a Fugitive Slave Law, and in 1793 there was passed a disgraceful statute. The Constitution sanctioned slavery and made it the legal duty of Congress to provide the necessary machinery for the capture and return of fugitive slaves; but the law should at least have given to any Negro, claimed as a slave, the benefit of the doubt, until proof of the claim was complete. The presumption should have been in his favor. Such, indeed, was the maxim of the Roman Imperial law. But this American law followed rather the medieval maxim that a masterless man must belong to some master. It was a base surrender of human rights to property rights. It assumed that the claim of a pretended master was good unless disproved by evidence. No jury trial was provided, and a free Negro, seized in a strange locality, might easily find it impossible to prove his freedom,- especially as the law failed to provide for summoning witnesses. A crushing fine was provided for any citizen aiding a Negro who might prove to be an escaped slave. In every detail the presumption of the law was against the Negro. In a more enlightened age the courts would have held the law unconstitutional. It neither provided securities for the accused in criminal cases (if the claim that a Negro was an escaped slave constituted a criminal case), nor insured the jury trial guaranteed by the seventh amendment in civil cases. But law, after all, is merely what the courts, sustained by public opinion, declare it to be. This abominable statute was sustained by American courts; and, under its sanction, gangs of kidnapers could, and sometimes did, carry off free men to a horrible slavery. After some fifty years (in the famous Prigg v. Pennsylvania case) the Supreme Court of the nation definitely upheld the constitutionality of the law, except as to the provision requiring State officials to act as Federal officers in carrying it out (1842). The more active public opinion of the forties took advantage of this leak to undermine the operation of the law. Then the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (§ 629) merely reënacted the old abuses with more efficient machinery, i. e. with special Federal commissioners to enforce them. 384. The reunion of the old thirteen States was completed by the ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina (November, 1789) and in Rhode Island (1790). Almost at the same time began the expansion of the Union through the admission of new States, Vermont in 1791, and Kentucky in 1792. Toward the close of the Federalist period, Tennessee was admitted 1 West's Ancient World, § 637. 2 In some parts of the country, the law had been a dead letter from the first. In 1795 a fugitive slave was rescued from pursuers in Massachusetts. |