Perspective: George Washington’s lesson for Trump’s America
" and a member of the graduate teaching faculty in the Rutgers School of Communication and information.
Under the Articles of Confederation, a national tax could be imposed only if every state agreed to it, and several states opposed a national levy to pay soldiers. After all, the motivation for fighting King George and Parliament included a resentment of taxes, deep suspicion of national power concentrated in the center and opposition to a large standing army. So a national tax imposed by Congress to support the army seemed to be recreating the very conditions men had given their lives to oppose.
Gen. Arthur St. Clair warned Congress that “a convulsion of the most dreadful nature and consequence was brewing.” After all, as Gouverneur Morris said to Alexander Hamilton, “the army have swords in their hands.” Hamilton, in turn, informed James Madison that the army had “secretly determined” to hold on to their weapons until they were sure of being paid.
Historian Robert Morris has said that gathering on March 15, 1783, “marked one of the key turning points in the history of the newly independent nation.” Washington asked Gates to chair the meeting, neutralizing him and his supporters by including them. The future president then went on the attack, calling anyone who would turn the army against the government “an insidious foe” of both.
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