The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
TAXATION / EXCISE TAXES
The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by
the Constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and
last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and
setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to. The
information of our militia, returned from the westward, is uniform,
that though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects
of their laughter, not of their fear; that one thousand men could have
cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Alleghany; that
their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now
associated to it a detestation of the government; and that a
separation which perhaps was a very distant and problematical event,
is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man. I
expected to have seen some justification of arming one part of the
society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before
the meeting of that body which has the sole right of declaring war; of
being so patient of the kicks and scoffs of our enemies, and rising at
a feather against our friends.
to James Madison, 28 December 1794
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