How Did The Whiskey Rebellion Change People's Perception Of Federal Laws In The United States

In January 1791, President George Washington'southward Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed a seemingly innocuous excise revenue enhancement "upon spirits distilled within the United States, and for appropriating the same."¹ What Congress failed to predict was the vehement rejection of this revenue enhancement by Americans living on the frontier of Western Pennsylvania. By 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion threatened the stability of the nascent United States and forced President Washington to personally lead the United states of america militia west to stop the rebels.

By 1791 the United States suffered from significant debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. Secretary Hamilton, a Federalist supporting increased federal dominance, intended to use the excise taxation to lessen this financial brunt. Despite resistance from Anti-Federalists like Thomas Jefferson, Congress passed the legislation. When news of the revenue enhancement spread to Western Pennsylvania, individuals immediately voiced their displeasure past refusing to pay the taxation. Residents viewed this tax every bit nevertheless another example of unfair policies dictated by the eastern elite that negatively affected American citizens on the frontier.

Western farmers felt the tax was an abuse of federal authorization wrongly targeting a demographic that relied on crops such as corn, rye, and grain to earn a turn a profit. However, shipping this harvest east was unsafe because of poor storage and dangerous roads. As a result, farmers frequently distilled their grain into liquor which was easier to send and preserve. While big-scale farmers easily incurred the financial strain of an additional tax, indigent farmers were less able to do so without falling into dire financial straits.

President Washington sought to resolve this dispute peacefully. In 1792, he issued a national proclamation admonishing westerners for their resistance to the "functioning of the laws of the U.s. for raising revenue upon spirits distilled within the aforementioned."² All the same, past 1794 the protests became violent. In July, most 400 whiskey rebels near Pittsburgh set fire to the home of John Neville, the regional revenue enhancement collection supervisor. Left with little recourse and at the urgings of Secretary Hamilton, Washington organized a militia force of 12,950 men and led them towards Western Pennsylvania, alert locals "not to abet, aid, or comfort the Insurgents aforesaid, equally they volition answer the reverse at their peril."ⁱⁱⁱ

The calling of the militia had the desired effect of essentially ending the Whiskey Rebellion. By the time the militia reached Pittsburgh, the rebels had dispersed and could not be plant. The militia apprehended approximately 150 men and tried them for treason. A paucity of evidence and the inability to obtain witnesses hampered the trials. 2 men, John Mitchell and Philip Weigel, were establish guilty of treason, though both were pardoned by President Washington. By 1802, and so President Thomas Jefferson repealed the excise tax on whiskey. Under the eye of President Washington, the nascent United States survived the first truthful challenge to federal authority.

Peter Kotowski

Loyola University Chicago

Notes:
1. "28 Jan 1791," Periodical of the Senate of the United states, 1789-1793. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875.

two. National Gazette, 29 September 1792.

3. Gazette of the Usa, 25 September 1794.

Bibliography:
Baldwin, Leland. Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1939.

Hogeland, William. The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels who Challenged America'south Newfound Sovereignty. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006.

Slaughter, Thomas. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Printing, 1986.

Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/whiskey-rebellion/

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