Transcript
Charlie Kirk (0:00)
I'm back in the Bitcoin.com studio and today I have an amazing interview for you with my good friend Bill Federer. He is a brilliant historian and this interview is perfect for Memorial Day. Enjoy and email me your thoughts. Freedom charliekirk.com Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.
Bill Federer (0:13)
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Charlie Kirk (0:15)
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
Bill Federer (0:17)
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.
Charlie Kirk (0:34)
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegoldinvestments.com that is noblegoldinvestments.com it's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com okay, everybody. Today on the Charlie Kirk show, we have an amazing guest and friend of mine to talk about history, how it connects with current events. And that is Bill Federer from Americanminute.com Bill, great to see you. You're impeccably dressed as always. Thanks for taking the time.
Bill Federer (1:27)
Charlie, great to be with you.
Charlie Kirk (1:29)
So, Bill, I want to ask a couple of questions, the first of which, what is the history of tariffs in America? The media makes it seem as if we've never done this before. Have we financed our government tariffs before? How did some of our founding fathers think about tariffs? And how does that connect to some of the news of President Trump using tariffs as a negotiating tool?
Bill Federer (1:47)
Right. For the first century and a half of our country, that's how the federal government raised its money. So a little background. Industrial revolution. In England, coal was what they burned. And they had coal mines that would fill up with water. So in 1769, Isaac Watt invented a steam pump to get water out of coal mines. And that quickly turned into a steam engine that ran factories and wool. If you look at it under a microscope, it has little barbs that if you pull them, they hook together and get tighter. And so women would have to sit at a spinning wheel and take this yarn and turn it into thread and then make claw. Well, factories could make bolts of cloth really quick, really inexpensive. And so this is called the Industrial Revolution. But the British did not allow manufacturing in the colonies because they wanted to market. And so when America becomes independent of Britain. The second bill that George Washington signed as president was the Tariff act of 1789 to put a 5% tariff on on all imports into America to make those factory produced items from England more expensive, intentionally so that it would provide a cushion for those manufacturing to begin in America. Matter of fact, there was no income tax in America until the Civil War. I'll get to that. And the U.S. constitution specifically mentions that tariff tax taxes was the way the federal government was going to get its income. Article 1, Section 8 authorizes the Federal government to collect duties and imposts, which are different terms for tariffs, to pay the debts, provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States. So basically all federal money came from tariffs. And so Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, created the Coast Guard. To do what? To catch ships that were trying to smuggle stuff into America without paying the tariffs. And so he's in charge of federal revenue, he's the Secretary of Treasury. The fastest ships of the day were called cutters. And so these were called revenue cutters. It was the beginning of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was started to get collect tariffs. And so when the tariffs began to work, Thomas Jefferson, the third president, stated April 6, 1816, it may be the duty of all to submit to this sacrifice to pay for a time and impost on importation of certain articles in order to encourage their manufacture at home. So it's like, look everybody, we're gonna have to pay a little bit extra if we want these foreign goods. Why? Because we want to create a margin so that people can take the risk and start factories in America. And this was amazing. Instead of women sitting at spinning yards, they could buy bolts of cloth. Instead of going to a well and dragging buckets of water into the house, they could have indoor plumbing. And then we. So basically the Industrial Revolution freed women up from these menial tasks and then they produced farm equipment. And so instead of a farmer having to hire manual labor, one machine could harvest a field. Instead of ladies using washtubs, they could use a washer machine. And so this saw the fastest rise in the standard of living in human history. And between 1792 and 1812, tariffs went up to 12.5%. After the War of 1812, tariffs went up to 25%. In 1820, they were at 40%. And near the Civil War they were at 60%. Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, said December 5, 1853. Happily, I have no occasion to suggest any radical changes in the financial policy of the government. Ours is almost, if not absolutely, the solitary power of Christendom, having a surplus of revenue drawn immediately from imposts on commerce. Here's Franklin Pierce said, hey, we're like the only country in the world and we have a surplus of money, and it's all from tariff taxes. Ben Siegelman wrote in 1962 in the commentary magazine article tariffs, Kennedy administration and American politics. He said, in the early years of the republic, all but about $20,000 of the $4.5 million of treasury income ste from tariff levies up to the civil war. In fact, over 90% of the federal government's receipts came from tariffs.
