Albert Beveridge - The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4)

The slander that the Treasury Department had misused the public funds had been thoroughly answered; 220 220 See Annals , 2d Cong., 900-63. but the Legislature of Virginia by a majority of 111 out of a total vote of 124, applauded her Senators and Representatives who had urged the inquiry. 221 221 Journal, H.D. (1793), 56-57. Of Giles's methods in this attack on Hamilton the elder Wolcott wrote that it was "such a piece of baseness as would have disgraced the council of Pandemonium." (Wolcott to his son, March 25, 1793; Gibbs, i, 91.) Such was the developing temper of Republicanism as revealed by the emotionless pages of the public records; but these furnish scarcely a hint of the violence of public opinion.

Jefferson was now becoming tigerish in his assaults on the measures of the Administration. Many members of Congress had been holders of certificates which Assumption and Funding had made valuable. Most but not all of them had voted for every feature of Hamilton's financial plan. 222 222 Beard: Econ. O. J. D. , chap. vi. Three or four were directors of the Bank, but no dishonesty existed. 223 223 Professor Beard, after a careful treatment of this subject, concludes that "The charge of mere corruption must fall to the ground." ( Ib. , 195.) Heavy speculation went on in Philadelphia. 224 224 "To the northward of Baltimore everybody … speculates, trades, and jobs in the stocks. The judge, the advocate, the physician and the minister of divine worship, are all, or almost all, more or less interested in the sale of land, in the purchase of goods, in that of bills of exchange, and in lending money at two or three per cent." (La Rochefoucauld, iv, 474.) The French traveler was also impressed with the display of riches in the Capital. "The profusion of luxury of Philadelphia, on great days, at the tables of the wealthy, in their equipages and the dresses of their wives and daughters, are … extreme. I have seen balls on the President's birthday where the splendor of the rooms, and the variety and richness of the dresses did not suffer, in comparison with Europe." The extravagance extended to working-men who, on Sundays, spent money with amazing lavishness. Even negro servants had balls; and negresses with wages of one dollar per week wore dresses costing sixty dollars. ( Ib. , 107-09.) This, said Republicans, was the fruit which Hamilton's Nationalist financial scheme gathered from the people's industry to feed to "monocrats."

"Here [Philadelphia]," wrote Jefferson, " the unmonied farmer … his cattle & corps [ sic ] are no more thought of than if they did not feed us. Script & stock are food & raiment here… The credit & fate of the nation seem to hang on the desperate throws & plunges of gambling scoundrels." 225 225 Jefferson to T. M. Randolph, March 16, 1792; Works : Ford, vi, 408. But Jefferson comforted himself with the prophecy that "this nefarious business" would finally "tumble its authors headlong from their heights." 226 226 Jefferson to Short, May 18, 1792; Works : Ford, vi, 413; and see "A Citizen" in the National Gazette , May 3, 1792, for a typical Republican indictment of Funding and Assumption.

The National law taxing whiskey particularly aroused the wrath of the multitude. Here it was at last! – a direct tax laid upon the universal drink of the people, as the razor-edged Pennsylvania resolutions declared. 227 227 Gallatin's Writings : Adams, i, 3. Here it was, just as the patriotic foes of the abominable National Constitution had predicted when fighting the ratification of that "oppressive" instrument. Here was the exciseman at every man's door, just as Henry and Mason and Grayson had foretold – and few were the doors in the back counties of the States behind which the owner's private still was not simmering. 228 228 Pennsylvania alone had five thousand distilleries. (Beard: Econ. O. J. D. , 250.) Whiskey was used as a circulating medium. (McMaster, ii, 29.) Every contemporary traveler tells of the numerous private stills in Pennsylvania and the South. Practically all farmers, especially in the back country, had their own apparatus for making whiskey or brandy. (See chap. vii, vol. i, of this work.) Nor was this industry confined to the lowly and the frontiersmen. Washington had a large distillery. (Washington to William Augustine Washington, Feb. 27, 1798; Writings : Ford, xiii, 444.) New England's rum, on the other hand, was supplied by big distilleries; and these could include the tax in the price charged the consumer. Thus the people of Pennsylvania and the South felt the tax personally, while New Englanders were unconscious of it. Otherwise there doubtless would have been a New England "rum rebellion," as Shays's uprising and as New England's implied threat in the Assumption fight would seem to prove. (See Beard: Econ. O. J. D. , 250-51.) And why was this tribute exacted? To provide funds required by the corrupt Assumption and Funding laws, asserted the agitators.

Again it was the National Government that was to blame; in laying the whiskey tax it had invaded the rights of the States, hotly declared the Republicans. "All that powerful party," Marshall bears witness, "which attached itself to the local [State] rather than to the general [National] government … considered … a tax by Congress on any domestic manufacture as the intrusion of a foreign power into their particular concerns which excited serious apprehensions for state importance and for liberty." 229 229 Marshall, ii, 200. The tariff did not affect most people, especially those in the back country, because they used few or no imported articles; but the whiskey tax did reach them, directly and personally. 230 230 Ib. , 238.

Should such a despotic law be obeyed? Never! It was oppressive! It was wicked! Above all, it was "unconstitutional"! But what to do! The agencies of the detested and detestable National Government were at work! To arms, then! That was the only thing left to outraged freemen about to be ravaged of their liberty! 231 231 Graydon, 372. Thus came the physical defiance of the law in Pennsylvania; Washington's third proclamation 232 232 Sept. 25, 1794; Writings : Ford, xii, 467. demanding obedience to the National statutes after his earnest pleas 233 233 Sept. 15, 1792; Richardson, i, 124; Aug. 7, 1794; Writings : Ford, xii, 445. to the disaffected to observe the laws; the march of the troops accompanied by Hamilton 234 234 Hamilton remained with the troops until the insurrection was suppressed and order fully established. (See Hamilton's letters to Washington, written from various points, during the expedition, from Oct. 25 to Nov. 19, 1794; Works : Lodge, vi, 451-60.) against the insurgents; the forcible suppression of this first armed assault on the laws of the United States in which men had been killed, houses burned, mails pillaged – all in the name of the Constitution, 235 235 Marshall, ii, 200, 235-38, 340-48; Gibbs, i, 144-55; and see Hamilton's Report to the President, Aug. 5, 1794; Works : Lodge, vi, 358-88. But see Gallatin's Writings : Adams, i, 2-12; Beard: Econ. O. J. D. , 250-60. For extended account of the Whiskey Rebellion from the point of view of the insurgents, see Findley: History of the Insurrection , etc., and Breckenridge: History of the Western Insurrection . which the Republicans now claimed as their peculiar property. 236 236 The claim now made by the Republicans that they were the only friends of the Constitution was a clever political turn. Also it is an amusing incident of our history. The Federalists were the creators of the Constitution; while the Republicans, generally speaking and with exceptions, had been ardent foes of its adoption. (See Beard: Econ. O. J. D. )