9. Give an account of the adoption of the first ten amendments.
10. For what do these amendments provide?
11. What powers are reserved to the states?
Section 8. A Few Words about Politics.
[Sidenote: Federal taxation.] A chief source of the opposition to the new federal government was the dread of federal taxation. People who found it hard to pay their town, county, and state taxes felt that it would be ruinous to have to pay still another kind of tax. In the mere fact of federal taxation, therefore, they were inclined to see tyranny. With people in such a mood it was necessary to proceed cautiously in devising measures of federal taxation.
[Sidenote: Excise.] This was well understood by our first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and in the course of his administration of the treasury he was once roughly reminded of it. The two methods of federal taxation adopted at his suggestion were duties on imports and excise on a few domestic products, such as whiskey and tobacco. The excise, being a tax which people could see and feel, was very unpopular, and in 1794 the opposition to it in western Pennsylvania grew into the famous "Whiskey Insurrection," against which President Washington thought it prudent to send an army of 16,000 men. This formidable display of federal power suppressed the insurrection without bloodshed.
[Sidenote: Tariff.] Nowhere was there any such violent opposition to Hamilton's scheme of custom-house duties on imported goods. People had always been familiar with such duties. In the colonial times they had been levied by the British government without calling forth resistance until Charles Townshend made them the vehicle of a dangerous attack upon American self-government.[32] After the Declaration of Independence, custom-house duties were levied by the state governments and the proceeds were paid into the treasuries of the several states. Before 1789, much trouble had arisen from oppressive tariff-laws enacted by some of the states against others. By taking away from the states the power of taxing imports, the new Constitution removed this source of irritation. It became possible to lighten the burden of custom-house duties, while by turning the full stream of them into the federal treasury an abundant national revenue was secured at once. Thus this part of Hamilton's policy met with general approval. The tariff has always been our favourite device for obtaining a national revenue. During our Civil War, indeed, the national, government resorted extensively to direct taxation, chiefly in the form of revenue stamps, though it also put a tax upon billiard-tables, pianos, gold watches, and all sorts of things. But after the return of peace these unusual taxes were one after another discontinued, and since then our national revenue has been raised, as in Hamilton's time, from duties on imports and excise on a few domestic products, chiefly tobacco and distilled liquors.
[Footnote 32: See my War of Independence, pp. 58-83; and my History of the United States, for Schools, pp. 192-203.]
[Sidenote: Origin of American political parties.] Hamilton's measures as secretary of the treasury embodied an entire system of public policy, and the opposition to them resulted in the formation of the two political parties into which, under one name or another, the American people have at most times been divided. Hamilton's opponents, led by Jefferson, objected to his principal measures that they assumed powers in the national government which were not granted to it by the Constitution. Hamilton then fell back upon the Elastic Clause[33] of the Constitution, and maintained that such powers were implied in it. Jefferson held that this doctrine of "implied powers" stretched the Elastic Clause too far. He held that the Elastic Clause ought to be construed strictly and narrowly; Hamilton held that it ought to be construed loosely and liberally. Hence the names "strict-constructionist" and "loose-constructionist," which mark perhaps the most profound and abiding antagonism in the history of American politics.
[Footnote [33]: Article I, section viii, clause 18; see above, p. 245.]