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The 'Whiskey Rebellion', less commonly known as the 'Whiskey Insurrection', was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794 in the locality of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the Monongahela Valley. The rebellion occurred shortly after the Articles of Confederation had been replaced by a stronger federal government under the United States Constitution in 1789.

Contents

1791 tax

Tom the Tinker

Consequences

Popular culture

See also

References

Bibliography

1791 tax

The new federal government, at the urging of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, assumed the states' debt from the American Revolutionary War. In 1791 Hamilton convinced Congress to approve taxes on distilled spirits and carriages. Hamilton's reasons for the tax were several: he wanted to pay down the small national debt, but justified the tax "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue."^[1] But most importantly, Hamilton "wanted the tax imposed to advance and secure the power of the new federal government."^[2]
Large producers were assessed a tax ranging from 7 to 18 cents per gallon. These Western settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable distilled spirits, due to their distance from markets and the lack of good roads.
The tax on whiskey was bitterly and fiercely opposed among the cohee on the frontier from the day it was passed. Western farmers considered it to be both unfair and discriminatory, since they had traditionally converted their excess grain into liquor. The whiskey thus produced could easily be transported and sold while the grain itself could not. Since the nature of the tax affected those who sold the whiskey, it directly affected many farmers. Many protest meetings were held, and a situation arose which was reminiscent of the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 before the American Revolution.
From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also made violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. [1]
By the summer of 1794, tensions reached a fevered pitch all along the western frontier as the pioneer/settlers' primary marketable commodity was threatened by the federal taxation measures. Finally the civil protests became an armed rebellion. The first shots were fired at the Oliver Miller Homestead in present day South Park Township Pennsylvania — about ten miles south of Pittsburgh. As word of the rebellion spread across the frontier, a whole series of loosely organized resistance measures were taken, including robbing the mail, stopping court proceedings, and the threat of an assault on Pittsburgh. One group disguised as women, assaulted a tax collector, cropped his hair, coated him with tar and feathers, and stole his horse. Though this did not kill the collector, it physically scarred him for life.
George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, remembering Shays' Rebellion from just eight years before, decided to make Pennsylvania a testing ground for federal authority. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court. On August 7, 1794, Washington invoked Martial Law to summon the militias of Pennsylvania, Virginia and several states. The rebel force they sought was likewise composed of Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and possibly men from other states. [2]
The militia force of 13,000 men was organized, roughly the size of the entire army in the Revolutionary War. Under the personal command of Washington, Hamilton and Revolutionary War hero General Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, the army assembled in Harrisburg and marched into Western Pennsylvania (to what is now Monongahela, Pennsylvania) in October of 1794. The rebels "could never be found," according to Jefferson, but the militia expended considerable effort rounding up 20 prisoners, clearly demonstrating Federalist authority in the national government. The men were imprisoned, where one died, while two were convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. Washington, however, pardoned them on the grounds that one was a "simpleton," and the other, "insane."

Tom the Tinker

''Tom the Tinker'' assumed the leadership of the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s. He came about after it was decided that to merely attack tax collectors or those who rented offices and lodging to tax collectors wasn't enough; pressure needed to be applied to those who had registered their stills and were paying the tax. In essence, Tom the Tinker illuminated the point that compliance with the law was as contemptible an action as those who were collecting the whiskey tax. He began by writing personal notes to individuals imploring them to contact the Pittsburgh Gazette (now Pittsburgh Post Gazette) and state their dislike of the whiskey tax or suffer the consequences; namely coming home to find your whiskey still in shambles. Emboldened with his success, he began to contact the editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette with notes urging him to publish against the tax or feel the wrath of Tom the Tinker. Groups formed calling themselves Tom the Tinker's Men. They assured Tom the Tinker's threats were carried out. Some believe John Holcroft, a leading member of the Mingo Creek Association, was Tom the Tinker but it is not known whether Tom was an actual individual or a character created by the leading members of the Whiskey Rebellion to serve as their leader.

Consequences

This marked the first time under the new United States Constitution that the federal government used military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens. It was also one of only two times that a sitting President personally commanded the military in the field. (The other was after President James Madison fled the British occupation of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812.)
The military suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion set a precedent that U.S. citizens who wished to change the law had to do so peacefully through constitutional means; otherwise, the government would meet any threats to disturb the peace with force.
The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone-filtered water and therefore began making whiskey from corn; this corn whiskey developed into Bourbon. [3] Additionally, the rebellion and its suppression helped turn people away from the Federalist Party and toward the Democratic Republican Party. This is shown in the 1794 Philadelphia congressional election, in which upstart Democratic Republican John Swanwick won a stunning victory over incumbent Federalist Thomas Fitzsimons, carrying 7 of 12 districts and 57% of the vote.
The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success. [4]

Popular culture

Susanna Rowson used the Whiskey Rebellion as inspiration for a musical farce for the stage called ''The Volunteers''. The lyrics were set to music by Alexander Reinagle of the New Company, which performed the play in Philadelphia in 1795.
L. Neil Smith's novel "The Probability Broach" contains an alternate history where Albert Gallatin convinced the militia force not to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, but instead to march on the nation's capital, execute George Washington for treason, and to replace the Constitution with a revised Articles of Confederation. As a result, the United States becomes a libertarian utopia called the North American Confederation. Albert Gallatin's intervention in the Whiskey Rebellion comes as a result of an additional word in the Constitution, which in the parallel universe contains the phrase "deriving its just powers from the ''unanimous'' consent of the governed".
Richard D. Fuerle composed a light opera about the Whiskey Rebellion called "Rebellion!", which was recorded by professional singers.

See also

★ American Whiskey Trail

★ Moonshine

References

1. Oxford History of the United States 1783-1917, , Samuel E., Morrison, , 1927,
2. Federal Income Taxation: Principles and Policies, , Michael J., Graetz, Foundation Press, 2005,

Bibliography

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

★ Cooke, Jacob E. "The Whiskey Insurrection: A Re-Evaluation." Pennsylvania History, 30 (July 1963), pp. 316-364.

★ Kohn, Richard H. "The Washington Administration's Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion." Journal of American History, 59 (December 1972), pp. 567-584.

★ Slaughter, Thomas P. "The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution." Oxford University Press 1986. # ISBN 0-19-505191-2

★ Mainwaring, W. Thomas, ed., "The Whiskey Rebellion and the Trans-Appalachian Frontier." Topic: A Journal of the Liberal Arts, 45 (Fall 1994)(special 93-page compilation of five papers presented at the April 1994 Whiskey Rebellion Bicentennial Conference, Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.)

★ Hogeland, William. "The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty." Scribner, 2006

★ Rothbard, Murray N. "The Whiskey Rebellion: A Model For Our Time?", Free Market (Volume 12, Number 9; September 1994)