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To: nicollo
" In fact, much of the Constitutional founding was built upon the necessity to and experience of the Founders in paying off the war debts."

Does that include letting the profiteering speculators make out as they did? Madison wanted payments to be made only to those who had taken the script initially.

As for Washington, perhaps you are right. I certainly don't find his role in the Whiskey Rebellion very admirable. These were poor farmers, heavily dependent on being able to convert their grain to compact form for easy transportation to a distant market. The whiskey tax was morally akin to the tariffs with which the North subsequently exploited the South, taking advantage of their dependence on foreign markets.

Hamilton opposed the Bill of Rights; and although his argument against it had merit, and his prediction that rights not enumerated could cease to be regarded as rights has come true to an extent, I don't believe these were the true reasons for his opposition.

An interesting sidelight: Hamilton's dueling pistols, used in his duel with Burr, were provided with a secret hair-trigger to give a person in the know an advantage. It has been conjectured that Hamilton accidently fired early, shooting into a tree above Burr's head because he had set the hair trigger. (That he shot above Burr is a fact.) Whether he actually used the secret device or not, we can of course never know.

89 posted on 01/04/2002 5:49:51 PM PST by Aurelius
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To: Aurelius
I like your history, Aurelius, but I question your judgement: the whiskey tax was nothing like the tariff, and neither one was "exploitation" of anyone. The tariff was hardly a punishment of the South. You might argue it was detrimental to southern interests, but exploitive? No way. That you believe this betrays your hatred of Hamilton.

(Btw, for you income-tax haters, it was southerners, who promoted the income tax; was that exploitive of the North?)

As for Washington: come on. Give sympathy to the Whiskey rebels, sure, but condemn Washington for it? It's non-sensical to derive from Washington's person and beliefs any other path than that which he took. The man who built the Union would not allow its destruction so easily.

Washington was and remains the first and greatest American.

90 posted on 01/04/2002 6:06:30 PM PST by nicollo
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