[Footnote 1:  The italics are mine.]

Two matters connected with the treasury, I have said, deserved fuller consideration than a general review could give.  The one just described, the policy of the Report on Manufactures, came, as has been seen, to no clear and immediate result.  The other reached a very sharp and definite conclusion, not without great effect on the new government of the United States, both at the moment and in the future.  When Hamilton “struck the rock of the national resources,” the stream of revenue which he sought at the outset was that flowing from duties on imports, for this, in his theory, was not only the first source, but the best.  He would fain have had it the only one; but the situation drove him forward.  The assumption of the state debts, a part of the legacy of the Revolution, and the continuing and at first increasing expenses of unavoidable Indian wars, made additional revenue absolutely essential.  He turned therefore to the excise on domestic spirits to furnish what was needed.

Washington approved assumption.  It was a measure of honesty, it would raise the public credit, and above all, it was thoroughly national in its operation and results.  The appropriations for Indian wars he of course approved, for their energetic prosecution was part of the vigorous policy toward our wild neighbors upon which he was so determined.  It followed, of course, that he did not shrink from imposing the taxes thus made necessary; and to raise the money from domestic spirits seemed to him, under the existing exigency, to be what it was,—­thoroughly proper and reasonable both in form and subject.

It would seem, however, that neither Washington nor Hamilton realized the unpopularity of this mode of getting revenue.  The frontier settlers along the line of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, who distilled whiskey, were not very familiar, perhaps, with Johnson’s dictionary, but they would have cordially accepted his definition of an excise.  To them it was indeed a “hateful tax,” and nothing else.  In fact, the word was one disliked throughout the States, for it brought up evil memories, and excited much jealous hostility and prejudice.  The first excise law, therefore, when it went into force, was the signal for a general outburst of opposition; and in the Alleghany region, as might have been expected, the resistance was immediate and most bitter.  State legislatures passed resolutions, public meetings were held and more resolutions were passed, while in the wilder parts of the country threats of violence were freely uttered.  All these murmurings and menaces came on the passage of the first bill in 1791.  The administration, however, had no desire to precipitate an uncalled-for strife, and so the law was softened and amended in the following year, the tax being lowered and the most obnoxious features removed.  The result was general acquiescence throughout most of the States, and renewed opposition