With the ratification of ten of these amendments, opposition to the Constitution ceased.  But as soon as Congress began to pass laws, difference of opinion as to the expediency of them, and even as to the right of Congress to pass them, divided the people again into two parties, and sent a good many Federalists into the Anti-Federalist party.

A very large number of men, for instance, opposed the funding of the Continental Congress debt at its face value, because the people never had taken a bill at the value expressed on its face, but at a very much less value; some opposed the assumption of the state debts, because Congress, they said, had power to pay the debt of the United States, but not state debts; others opposed the National Bank because the Constitution did not give Congress express power in so many words to charter a bank.  Others complained that the interest on the national debt and the great salary of the President ($25,000 a year) and the pay of Congressmen ($6 a day) and the hundreds of tax collectors made taxes too heavy.  They complained again that men in office showed an undemocratic fondness for aristocratic customs.  The President, they said, was too exclusive, and owned too fine a coach.  The Justices of the Supreme Court must have black silk gowns, with red, white, and blue scarfs.  The Senate for some years to come held its daily session in secret; not even a newspaper reporter was allowed to be present.

As early as 1792 there were thus a very great number of men in all parts of the country who were much opposed to the measures of Congress and the President, and who accused the Federalists of wishing to set up a monarchy.  A great national debt, they said, a funding system, a national bank, and heavy internal taxes are all monarchical institutions, and if you have the institutions, it will not be long before you have the monarchy.  They began therefore in 1792 to organize for election purposes, and as they were opposed to a monarchy, they called themselves “Republicans.” [1] Their great leaders were Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Randolph, and Albert Gallatin.

[Footnote 1:  This party was the forerunner of the present Democratic party.]

%226.  The Whisky Rebellion, 1794.%—­One of the taxes to which the Republicans objected, that on whisky, led to the first rebellion against the government of the United States.  In those days, 1791, the farmers living in the region around Pittsburg could not send grain or flour down the Ohio and the Mississippi, because Spain had shut the Mississippi to navigation by Americans.  They could not send their flour over the mountains to Philadelphia or Baltimore, because it cost more to haul it there than it would sell for.  Instead, therefore, of making flour, they grew rye and made whisky on their own farms.  This found a ready sale.  Now, when the United States collectors attempted to collect the whisky tax, the farmers of western Pennsylvania drove