In addition,
he called for an excise tax, and {145} later recommended the chartering
of a National Bank to serve the same function in America that the Bank
of England performed in Great Britain.

Daring, far-sighted, based on the methods of English financiers,
Hamilton's plans bristled with points certain to arouse antagonism. He
proposed to refund and pay the debt at its face value to actual
holders, regardless of the fact that the nearly worthless federal stock
and certificates of indebtedness had fallen into the hands of
speculators; he recommended that the United States should assume, fund,
and pay the war debt of the States, disregarding the fact that, while
some States were heavily burdened, others had discharged their
obligations. He urged an excise tax on liquors, although such an
internal tax was an innovation in America and was certain to stir
intense opposition; he suggested the chartering of a powerful bank, in
spite of the absence of any clause in the constitution authorizing such
action. Hamilton was, in fact, a great admirer of the English
constitution and political system, and he definitely intended to
strengthen the new government by making it the supreme financial power
and enlisting in its support all the moneyed interests of the country.
Property, as in England, must be the basis of government.

{146}

Against his schemes, there immediately developed a rising opposition
which made itself felt in Congress, in State legislatures, in the
newspapers, and finally in Washington's own Cabinet. All the farmer
and debtor elements in the country disliked and dreaded the financial
manipulations of the brilliant secretary; and the Virginian planters,
universally borrowers, who had been the strongest single power in
establishing the new constitution, now swung into opposition to the
administration. Madison led the fight in the House against Hamilton's
measures; and Jefferson, in the Cabinet, laid down, in a memorandum of
protest against the proposed bank, the doctrine of "strict
construction" of the constitution according to which the powers granted
to the federal government ought to be narrowly construed in order to
preserve the State governments, the source of liberty, from
encroachment. He denounced the bank, accordingly, as unwarranted by
the constitution, corrupt, and dangerous to the safety of the country.
In the congressional contest Hamilton was successful, for all his
recommendations were ado