Recommended reading, Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

Thank you, 13.5. I was not familiar with Beard. That will change shortly.

One youtube poster pretty much summarized how we were educated about this event in my American History course:

"Interesting revisionist history by the anti import tariff crowd.

As the Articles did not provide the Feds with the power to generate revenue, most of the previously issued bonds had already been purchased by gamblers [speculators], who had no inside knowledge of something that did not exist.

Without paying off the public debt, the nation would have failed, as no creditors would loan the US money.

Under Hamilton's plan the Fed government was 90% financed by import tariffs by 1791, why there was no Federal income tax until Wilson wiped out the import tariffs and the American System of Capitalism in 1913."

Her snide comments about "Governments being content to issue more debt to pay existing debt" also misses the point. The original debts owed were from a mixture of debtors (states, federal government, private entities, etc.) which had varying degrees of credit-worthiness. By consolidating the debts into a single federally-backed debt, Hamilton was able to build the credit of the United States (as we showed that we could pay back our debts then creditors would be more willing to lend us money in the future) and also able to relieve the massive financial burden on the states. Similar debt consolidation has been done in other countries (for example, Australia under section 105 and 105-A of their constitution) in order to create a good credit rating for their new governments and offset the financial instability that would result from many sub-national governments defaulting on their debt obligations.

Beard

thenewschoolhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Beard_An_Ec onomic_Interpretation_of_the_Consti.pdf

Now I don't know what to believe. I wasn't educated in America but the average man on the street seems think the founding fathers to be unblemished saints. I've only met a couple of people here that would openly say that they MAY have had one or two mild shortcomings but that could be because "Did the founding fathers rape slaves or what?" never really comes up and I wouldn't have a clue if it did. (I'm assuming "yes but they were of their time" to be the best way to phrase a love of casual slave raping)

Slave rapery seemed an important part of the young America, hence the proliferation of Jeffersons and Washingtons you will meet on the streets today.

I think it was on excise dude, which is stuff that's local right? I can see why you might be sour to whiskey you've made from grain you've grown on land you own being taxed at as disproportionately higher rate than whiskey made by a big company. Bit of a kick in the knackers, right?