In honor of President’s Day, I thought it would be fun to try and match U.S. Presidents to their tax policies. For purposes of clarification, I am well aware that tax legislation is Congressional, not presidential, but the President sets the tone for policy and action, so that’s the framework we’re using for the tax moves.
Try and guess who did which tax move throughout the day. I’m not promising fabulous prizes – mostly, it’s just for amusement and interest – but depending on how it goes, I might have a little something in the prize box. So, guess away.
Authorized the use of force to collect taxes (specifically, customs duties).
So who did it? Guesses?
Andrew Jackson?
Rebekah, you’re correct! It is Jackson.
Washington.
Monroe
Wilson?
Looks like Rebekah got it correct.
http://www.britannica.com/facts/11/773118/Force-Bill-as-discussed-in-Jackson-Andrew
The Whiskey Rebellion, less commonly known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a resistance movement in the western part of the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. The conflict was rooted in western dissatisfaction with various policies of the eastern-based national government. The name of the uprising comes from a 1791 excise tax on whiskey that was a central grievance of the westerners. The tax was a part of treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton’s program to centralize and fund the national debt.
The whiskey excise was unpopular among small farmers on the western frontier, where protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent government officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed Pennsylvanians attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. The Washington administration responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time raising a militia force to suppress the violence. The insurrection collapsed before the arrival of the army; about 20 men were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned.
The Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated that the new national government had the willingness and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws. The whiskey excise remained difficult to collect, however. The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already underway. The whiskey tax was repealed after Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party, which opposed Hamilton’s Federalist Party, came to power in 1800.