How did Americans' hatred of taxes shape the country up through the Gilded Age? [closed]

Question

It is clear that many Americans hated taxes and that it was one of the causes of the Revolutionary War. However, the effect of taxes shaping America after Independence up until the Gilded Age is not so clear to me. How do you think taxes shaped America and why?

Answer 1

Today when we talk about "taxes" usually what is meant is Income Taxes. The US did not have much in the way of income taxes during your period; during the Civil War a 3% tax was introduced for incomes over $800 in the Revenue Act of 1861, and that went away after the war; 1894 saw a 2% tax, but only the richest 10% paid it, and that one got declared unconstitutional anyway. It wasn't until 1913 and the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment that income tax became something significant enough to be hated. And it was, of course. But that's post-Gilded Age.

Besides income taxes there were various other kinds of taxes, many of which raised ire among some group or other. The Whiskey Rebellion was an early one in your period, due to a federal tax on whiskey - not by buyers in the form of a sales tax, but on sellers as an excise tax. Back then, farmers routinely converted excess crops to spirits, which were also used as a medium of exchange, so the excise tax hit a lot of farmers directly in the pocketbook. Excise taxes were thickly hated.

A lot of the taxation during your period was in the form of import taxes and tariffs. Free market philosophies and globalization have largely eliminated tariffs for the most part, but these were a major revenue source for the US early on. Even though they were not directly levied on individuals, they did stimulate strong reactions, such as if a tariff was perceived as being too harsh on one industry over another, or if it'd affect certain states more than others. Historians argue whether or not the tariff directly or indirectly led to the American Civil War, but the Nullification Crisis, an 1828 fight over a controversial tariff that South Carolina wanted to declare null and void under the doctrine of states' rights, seems to be generally agreed on as the event that birthed the conflict. So throughout the 1800's these tariffs, and the public's acceptance or rejection of them, were huge factors in US politics and even affected foreign relations. They helped protect America's fledgling industries and provided the finances to grow the government and expand US borders, yet they aggravated issues like slavery, states rights, and western expansion into Indian territories, generating lots and lots of divisiveness in the process.