AND THE FEDERALIST PARTY 131 



people, by the people, and for the people." The only 

 party that ever extricated itself from the dilemma, and 

 stood at one and the same time unflinchingly for the 

 Union and against paternal government in every form, 

 was the party of Jackson and Van Buren between 

 1830 and 1845. But with Hamilton paternal govern- 

 ment was desirable, not only as a means of strengthen- 

 ing the Union, but as an end in itself. He believed that 

 a part of the people ought to make laws for the whole. 

 Having now provided for the complete assumption 

 of all debts, domestic and foreign, state and federal, by 

 the United States, the next question was how to raise 

 the money for discharging them. The new govern- 

 ment was regarded with distrust by many people. It 

 was feared that the burden of federal taxation would 

 be intolerable. Men already found it hard to pay 

 taxes to their town, their county, and their state ; how 

 could they endure the addition of a fourth tax to the 

 list? There was but one way to deal with this diffi- 

 culty. Probably a general system of direct taxation 

 would not have been endured. It was accordingly 

 necessary to depend almost entirely upon custom-house 

 duties. This gentle, insidious method enables vast 

 sums to be taken from people's pockets without their 

 so much as suspecting it. It raises prices, that is all ; 

 and the dulness of the human mind may be safely 

 counted upon, so that when a tax is wrapped up in the 

 extra fifty cents charged for a yard of cloth, it is so 

 effectually hidden that most people do not know it is 

 there. Custom-house duties were accordingly levied, 

 and the foreign trade of the United States was already 

 so considerable that a large revenue was at once real- 

 ized from this source. To win added favour to this 



