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 whis