John Taylor was a Thomas Jefferson contemporary who understand the connection between taxation and tyrannical government. From Brian McClanahan at abbevilleinstitute.org:
One of the most enduring myths of American history centers on the “compact theory” of the Constitution. According to the standard interpretation, Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Republicans invented the “theory” to challenge Federalist control of the general government in the 1790s.
This implies that Jefferson and the other Republicans acted in bad faith by playing fast and loose with the history of the Constitution in a partisan hatchet job design to gain power. Simply put, they lied.
History does not support this position.
Jefferson certainly enjoyed political roughhousing, and he could be petty, but he was always a committed federalist—not Federalist—who understood the original intent of the Constitution better than most.
