Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: Dutch-Comfort; WhiskeyPapa
I have tried for a long time, without success, to find a source that would (or could) provide data from which we could determine just how much money flowed from the various states into the federal coffers and how much flowed in the opposite direction. What we do know though is that in the 1790's Hamilton arranged for federal assumption of debts incurred by the states to finance the Revolution (a far from insignificant portion of which was George Washington's expense account. The southern states had mostly repaid their debts, but their residents were forced to pony up, through taxation, the money to pay off the debts of the deadbeat Yankee states. The move of the Capitol from Philadelphia to the swamp now known as Washington D.C. was a concession to the southern politicians for this unjust extraction of funds from their constituents. Also, the whiskey excise was a further measure to finance the enrichment of the speculators (= friends of Hamilton) who had bought up at a fraction of its value the northern state's paper from the poor suckers who had originally extended credit to Washington's army. (There is more to that story, but that is for another time.) My point is, whatever may have happened between 1800 and 1860, initially it was the north which was the beneficiary and the south which was the victim of the unequal federal redistribution of wealth.
242 posted on 11/07/2002 4:53:23 PM PST by Aurelius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 240 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson