The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 can trace its roots back to cultural and social differences between the eastern seaboard cities’ upper ruling class and the more rural western poorer classes of farmers and artisans. Historical examples of these cultural differences show how the perceptions of different social strata played a role in the formation of the Whiskey Rebellion. President George Washington and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall considered the Whiskey Rebellion the most dangerous event in the history of the fledgling United States. Both believed “the very existence of government and the fundamental principles of social order were involved in the issue.”[1] Washington was so concerned he ordered 12,000 militia forces from numerous states to march on the rebellion. This force was larger than most American army units used throughout the War of Independence.[2]
In early America, people feared the loss of their personal freedoms and liberties, first from the British Empire and then from any central government, be it from individual states to the newly formed federal government. These beliefs were well founded from past European examples of excessive taxation, governmental corruption, and repressive acts like forced drafts.
Three past cultural and social conflicts prior to the Whiskey Rebellion are highlighted in this essay. The first is the British citizen’s response to Parliament imposing excised taxation on common household items during the 1600s. The second example is a 1754 bill introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature to impose an excise tax on liquor. Lastly is Shays’ Rebellion, which occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786-87.
The aversion of “internal taxation” that early Americans felt can in part be traced back to historical British taxation methods. Prior to the beginning of 1600 members of the British Parliament voiced apprehension on imposing internal or inland taxes on their subjects. The normal method of taxation during this time was from individuals owning land and imported goods at seaports prior to being sold to the public. The first excise tax passed by Parliament occurred in 1643 to finance the civil war occurring in Britain at the time. The tax covered beer, ale, cider followed by the next year of salt, beef, and rabbits.[3]
The response from the public was immediate and violent, with rioting throughout the country. Even after Parliament modified the tax to exclude the poor on drinking beer and repealed the tax on beef and salt altogether in 1647, the violence continued for over a hundred years.[4] After the Glorious Revolution imposed a stronger parliament and limited monarchy, English political, thinking became more “liberal” in thought to personal liberties. These principles espoused by the Enlightenment thinker John Locke made the English people the freest country in the world. These ideals crossed the Atlantic with the earliest colonists and became the cornerstone of American political culture and intellectual thought. Any governmental act perceived to support the indiscriminate use of power or authority was seen as a threat to colonists’ liberties.[5]
Not all excise taxes were aimed at rural farmers, artisans, and the lower working class. The Massachusetts Legislature in 1754 introduced a bill to reform its current excise tax on liquor. The governor of Massachusetts William Shirley in 1754 saw war to be inevitable between the French and British Empires. He saw French encroachments in present day Maine and along the Kennebec River in Eastern Massachusetts as a threat that needed more forts, arms, supplies; and he increased taxes to defend the frontier from French and Indian attacks. The Governor tasked the colonial legislature to propose additional sources of revenue. The majority of the elected representatives of the legislature came from the rural interior. They proposed a reform on the current taxes on liquors by doubling the tax on imported liquors. In addition, the tax on liquor brought from a licensed dealer increased. It was clear these taxes were aimed at the upper class and individuals living on the coast and in larger cities. The only people that consumed imported liquors in any quantity were the rich. The proposed taxes caused intense and vocal debates in the press and countryside. The tax seen by rural villages and small towns was seen as “the rich might be obliged to pay as well as the Poor, and those in lower stations of life.” The upper class and merchants saw the older tax as “far more just and equal than the new, unprecedented, and dangerous way pointed out in the late Bill [new excise].”[6]
Not taking the new tax laying down, the merchants and upper classes developed a marketing plan based on the population’s inherent distrust of any government and taxes in general. Using pamphlets and newspaper articles to sow misinformation to the rural public, they implied menacing outcomes if the new tax became law. They used themes that the tax could destroy the state constitution, the destruction of people’s natural rights, and even could lead to oppressive taxes on more goods that would lead to the slavery of its citizens.[7] The upper class rhetoric did not stop the reformed excise bill from becoming law. What this anti-excise movement offers us is another example of the early American people’s views on taxation, governmental powers, and constitutional rights of its citizens.[8]
An important event leading to the Whiskey Rebellion was Shays’ Rebellion, which occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786-87. In the 1780s, seventy percent of Americans lived on small farms or the small rural villages located nearby. Their economy was barter based.[9] Culturally, these people relied on each other for survival with the old Puritan principles of the community meeting hall and the local militia still prevalent throughout western Massachusetts. Whether it was the mid-wife or helping ones neighbors with the harvest, this way of life was ingrained for generations.
Shays’ Rebellion can be seen as two distinctive cultures colliding: one made of rural farmers and self-reliant artisans, the other made of wealthy merchants, politicians, lawyers and speculators from the emerging commercial culture of the cities. This latter, a social class based on individualism tied to mercantilism, involved with the founding industrial sector. Their world was based on money. They saw change as not only good but inevitable.
After the War of Independence, many farmers, artisans, and veterans found themselves deeply in debt. This caused local law enforcement to serve judgments against them, resulting in many farms and small businesses being forced into foreclosure.[10] Many of these men found themselves placed in debtor’s prison. Unlike many states that passed laws forgiving debt, the Massachusetts Assembly did not. [11]
During the Revolutionary War, many veterans received fewer wage as was promised by the Continental Congress. Due to a lack of volunteers joining the American army in 1776, Congress added inducements for prospective enlistees. Promises included cash and land grants, with even officers offered half their pay for the rest of their lives. Soldiers not paid in full received “bills of promise.” Speculators bought these IOU’s for pennies on the dollars from desperate veteran farmers and tradesmen.[12] Post-independence, America found itself near insolvency. After the war the British refused to trade, and an economic depression occurred during the 1780s.
Farmers and artisan shops that had established themselves in desperation took high-interest loans. Many farmers that owned their land took out mortgages with high interest rates. The banking interests that loaned these monies came from large urban areas, such as Boston. These groups quickly lobbied the state governments to pass laws opening debtor’s courts throughout the state’s county seats. A section of the law stated that when payments are missed the lender could request payment in full. Unable to pay the notes in full, and with interest, the courts ruled against the framers and artisans, resulting in property sized and farms foreclosed. The lender could request debtor’s prison if the property and land seized did not match the amount of monies owed. In addition, voting laws passed that year increased the property qualifications needed for the average person to vote. At the time, Massachusetts as a state had one of the highest level of taxation in the nation.[13] The rural people of Massachusetts found themselves with less governmental representation and more taxation than under the British rule in 1760. Within this explosive cultural gap, a man named Daniel Shays emerged. Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, fought in some of the most famous battles of the Revolution, including Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga in New York. Leaving the service, he settled in western Massachusetts in 1780. Shays found his property taken in debtor’s court in August 1786. Shays joined the popular unrest and protests. That September, leading a group of men numbering in the hundreds, Shays marched on the courthouse in Springfield, forcing it to close. Buoyed by this success, in January of 1787 he attacked the federal arsenal with over a thousand men under arms.[14] The Massachusetts assembly wisely deployed the state militia to Springfield to prevent this and soundly defeated Shays force at the battle of Petersham. Shays fled to nearby states. Sentenced to death, labeled a traitor and a rebel, his fate appeared finished. It seemed the state governments would take a hard approach. However, within a year Shays was pardoned and later granted a pension for his service in the war.[15] A result of Shays’ Rebellion came in the form of state governments passing laws lowering taxes, reducing repayments and in some cases forgiving the debtors completely. The ruling upper class felt they lost economically, believing the new laws lessened their property rights. They feared these laws would bring additional violent uprisings from other social classes’ perceived injustices. These men of wealth became convinced a strong national government had to form to make consistent economic policies and protect their interests from disgruntled locals.[16]
By the latter half of the 1780s, the cultures of the western and eastern half of early America were so different it was akin to being in separate countries. Many Americans believed that in the near future the nation would divide, using the Appalachian Mountains as the border between these two new countries. A foreign traveler wrote in 1781, “a preparation of the federal union into two parts, at no distance day….was a matter of frequent discussion…and seemed to be an opinion that was daily gaining ground.”[17] Those that lived west of Appalachian Mountains found life extremely dangerous in comparison to their eastern citizens. The constant threat of Indian attack caused the western settlers to become self-reliant and helpful to their neighbors, having learned long ago that help and support from state governments or the federal government was lacking or nonexistent.
The political philosophy that matched the culture of the western frontier peoples is best described as a people’s movement. After earning their freedom from the British through years of hardship and war, these people expected a far different form of democracy and comparable economic fairness between the social classes. In early America, the advent of the Great Awakening gave fuel to the people’s movement. By 1770, the movement wanted laws to limit the profits of the few and have equal distribution of wealth and credit.[18] Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s actions contributed greatly in causing the Whiskey Rebellion. Elected to the confederation Congress in 1782, he was renowned as a self-taught master of finance, knowing more of the subject than anyone in the government does.[19] The final insult to the people of western America was his 1790 fiscal policies Hamilton proposed. These wide-ranging policies included the formation of the bank of the United States that was privately owned and control by a few extremely wealthy men. The bank owners made it clear that its loaning practices would not benefit the lower social classes with low interest on loans. These same owners and other wealthy individuals were also heavily involved in the opportunist buying of war debit from veterans and artisans. Hamilton proposed the repayment of war debit chits be paid in full to the individuals currently owning them. The majority of these men were wealthy speculators.[20] Hamilton over-ruled the widely popular idea of paying the veterans, farmers, laborers, or artisans. Like many in Shays’ Rebellion, these individuals were forced to sell their debit certificates for pennies on the dollars to feed their families and found themselves facing foreclosure procedures from the very same men that bought their debit. Finally, Hamilton imposed an excise tax on all distilled spirits. This tax was purposely written to benefit large distillers from the eastern seaboard that sold in bulk. The tax unfairly burdened the smaller family-run stills that were common throughout the western frontier. When this plan became law in March 1791, it proved that “the new government actively fostered policies that redistributed wealth from the public at large to a small number of wealthy individuals.” [21]
The citizens of western Pennsylvania responded as their forbearers had for generations concerning taxes. The same themes from past British and American tax revolts occurred throughout the state. The depriving of their personal freedoms, tax collecters entering homes and having lecherous intentions to its female occupants, and fears of the military enforcing the law became a common refrain in protests and publications. The ingrained cultural beliefs of rural American colonialist against centrally imposed taxation became a cornerstone of their political thought. [22]
Western anger rose to a fervid pitch. Large demonstrations and protests occurred in Pittsburg in 1791-92, demanding Congress address these perceived injustices. These same grievances became core issues in the Rebellion. At a meeting at Pittsburgh, on Sept. 7th, 1791 a leader was quoted, “insulting to the feelings of the people to have ... their houses ... ransacked, [and] to be subject to informers.” It would overburden the existing “scarcity of a circulating medium” and “bring immediate distress and ruin,” and because it would be used to pay off speculators who “make fortunes by the fortuitous concurrence of circumstances rather than by economic, virtuous and useful employment.”[23]
When it became clear, the petitions to Congress and pleas to Washington’s administration fell on deaf ears violence erupted throughout western PA. Examples of this violence included Robert Johnson, a tax collector attacked, tarred, and feathered in Washington County, PA in September 1791. Later when a deputy law officer served arrest warrants he too found himself tarred and feather.[24] In the same location men disguised as Indians attacked the rented home of the local whiskey tax collector and destroyed it. As in the early part of the American Revolution, committees of correspondence formed in many western states. As protests increased, violence began in other states and in more locations throughout Pennsylvania.[25]
Meanwhile back in Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, the only person in Washington’s administration becoming worried about the situation was the man that caused it: Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton became worried the rebellion would escalate throughout the country. Although protests erupted in the Carolinas, Kentucky, and western Virginia, Hamilton chose the western Pennsylvania frontier as the location to enforce federal governance: “Decision successfully exerted in one place will, it is presumable, be efficacious everywhere”[26]. Western Pennsylvania became the center of anti-excise tax activity with the most meetings, petitions, and committees. With its location near major cities and the newly proclaimed nation’s capital, his reasoning was to subdue the most vocal element, and the rest of the country would follow suit.[27] Hamilton urged Attorney General Randolph and President Washington to issue indictments for the arrests of prominent leaders of the protest. Hamilton told Washington, “I shall…exert all the legal powers with which the executive is invested, to check so daring and unwarranted a spirit”.[28] Washington agreed with Hamilton and instructed him to find evidence of sedition prior to issuing warrants. When Attorney General Randolph examined Hamilton’s evidence, he found no grounds to indict.[29] Randolph showed the minutes of meetings in Pittsburg contained non-violence clauses. The President and Hamilton thought the Pittsburg meetings a “contemptuous resistance to the law,” believing such meetings became the catalyst for the violence. With these beliefs, Hamilton drafted a paper to Washington that became the presidential proclamation against excise tax protests and meetings on September 15 1792.[30]
Even after the presidential proclamation, people refused to pay the excise-tax, and attacks continued. What the proclamation did was to stop the peaceful element of the rebellion. Those individuals met to prepare petitions and form committees. Into this vacuum, the more violent elements of the rebellion came to the forefront. As 1793 ended, no one in western Pennsylvania collected the tax for fear of assault. In May and late September of 1793 an armed band of black-faced men forcefully entered the home of the Fayette County, Pennsylvania tax collector Benjamin Wells. The blackening of faces was a common practice of lower class English uprisings for generations. Both times the band terrorized his family and finally forced him to resign from his appointed position.[31] The violence continued into 1794 when mobs attacked two homes in southwestern Pennsylvania that housed tax collectors. The men inside were dragged and were tarred and feathered. When men offered to testify against the attackers, their barns burned to the ground.[32]
Hamilton saw the threat to the federal government increasing; he formed a powerful group within the administration. One member was the federal District Attorney for Pennsylvania, William Rawle. Rawle issued arrest warrants in for over sixty farmers and distillers to appear in the federal court in Philadelphia. The United States Marshall of the region David Lenox began to serve these men their writs during the annual harvest when farmers worked together. He immediately encountered armed resistance. David Miller, a farmer in the area, refused the writ and, with his field hands, forced Lenox to flee. Lenox, acting to arrest these individuals, lit the fuse to the powder keg of social discontent and outright mass rebellion.
Reacting to Marshall’s warrants on 16th and 17th July, several hundred armed men descended upon the home of General John Neville in Bower Hill in Washington County. Neville had been appointed personally by President Washington as the regional excise tax collector supervisor. Besieging his property, the men demanded all the tax records and his resignation.[33] After a two day battle, the Neville family and servants fled for their lives. The large farm with its many out buildings burned to the ground. [34] 1 August found 7,000 men, many non-property owners, forming nearby at Braddock’s Field. Fearing its cannons and defenses, the rebels decided not to attack the federal arsenal located at Fort Pitt across the river from Pittsburg.[35] Instead, what was more of a rabble than a fighting force located seven perceived government sympathizers, chased them from Pittsburg, and in the process destroyed two of their homes.[36] As the month of August progressed, the raising of liberty poles with the new flag of the rebels began to fly over three towns. With increasing violence centered on property burning, tarring, and feathering, the federal government found the rebellion spreading to eastern Pennsylvania and some southern states.
An August 14 meeting at Parkinson’s Ferry turned the insurrection in a direction that left the federal government only one choice: military intervention. The meeting was composed of 226 mostly radical delegates representing the six counties involved in the rebellion. A few moderate delegates talked of peace and working within the government to repel the tax. It soon became clear from the radicals that the whiskey tax was just a symbol of social injustice. What the delegates really wanted was a forceful and violent redistribution of land and wealth.[37] When news of what the leaders of the rebellion advocated reached Washington the alarm within the administration was tremendous. As Washington prepared for war, the governor of Pennsylvania begged the administration to allow the state government to resolve the rebellion, but this was ignored. On August 7, Washington issued a presidential proclamation ordering all resistance to end. With continued pleas from the governor of Pennsylvania, Washington finally allowed a peace commission to be sent to Pittsburg.[38]
Hamilton ensured his supporters became appointed and no movement to a settlement occurred.[39] In August, the government mobilized over 12,000 militia members from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In September, the four state militias converged on the town of Carlisle, PA. President Washington personally led this force from October 4 through 20 October before returning to Philadelphia for the upcoming congressional session. Washington selected western Pennsylvania for military intervention for several reasons. The United States, in its infancy, appeared weak to the nations of Europe. Washington’s administration believed the perception of weakness would be magnified if lower class dissension went unchecked. It became critical to the federal government that overwhelming force be used to make a statement to other lower-class Americans’ thinking of rebellion.[40] Hamilton continued with the army, then led by General Henry Lee-Virginia’s Governor.[41] Facing a large national army, the rebels melted away. Not a single shot was fired; the only protest noted was the raising of liberty poles as the army moved through local towns, including Carlisle PA[42]. For the next week, “a kind of inquisitorial court was opened,” composed of Hamilton, Peters, and Rawle that went from town to town-taking testimony against men involved in the rebellion.[43] The government arrested twenty men and later a grand jury indicted twenty-four for trail in Philadelphia.[44] Many escape captured and only ten stood trail; two received convictions. Later George Washington pardoned both.[45] The Whiskey Tax was repealed when Thomas Jefferson of the Republic Party became President in 1801.[46] The rebellion helped with the formation of political parties. This allowed lower class individuals a means to express themselves politically instead of violently. What is important about this event is the lasting legacy of the power of the federal government. The willingness of the federal government to deploy federal forces in domestic turmoil is common. Examples include coal miners striking in Colorado in the 1920s, to enforcements of laws during the civil rights era, to civil unrest like the Watts Riots. In all of these examples the cause of federal intervention was the perceived injustice of various social classes.
[1] Holt, The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794: A Democratic Working-Class Insurrection p 1
[2] Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion George Washing, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty 189
[3] Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution 12
[4] Slaughter, 13
[5] Lowell, "The 1754 Excise on Spirituous Liquors: Taxes, Political Rhetoric, and the English Concept of Liberty in Eighteenth- century Colonial Massachusetts" 3
[6] Lowell, 4
[7] Lowell, 5
[8] Lowell, 6
[9] Szatmary, 5-7
[10] Szatmary, 29
[11] Parker, 100
[12] Saylor.org 2
[13] Parker, Shays’ Rebellion: An Episode in American State-Making 99
[14] Parker, 101
[15] Saylor 4
[16] Saylor 5
[17] Slaughter, 30
[18] Hogeland, 34
[19] Hogeland, 29
[20] Hogeland, 59
[21] Holt, 8
[22] Slaughter, 17
[23] Holt, 9
[24] Hogeland, 103
[25] Slaughter, 109
[26] Slaughter, 119
[27] Slaughter, 120
[28] Slaughter, 121
[29] Hogeland, 124
[30] Slaughter, 121
[31] Slaughter, 151
[32] Hogeland, 130
[33] Hogeland, 153
[34] Holt,10
[35] Slaughter, 186
[36] Hogeland 170-173
[37] Hogeland,182
[38] Holt, 11
[39] Slaughter, 199
[40] Slaughter, 117-120
[41] Slaughter, 216
[42] Slaughter, 208
[43] Holt, 63
[44] Slaughter, 219
[45] Hogeland, 238
[46] Hogeland, 242
In early America, people feared the loss of their personal freedoms and liberties, first from the British Empire and then from any central government, be it from individual states to the newly formed federal government. These beliefs were well founded from past European examples of excessive taxation, governmental corruption, and repressive acts like forced drafts.
Three past cultural and social conflicts prior to the Whiskey Rebellion are highlighted in this essay. The first is the British citizen’s response to Parliament imposing excised taxation on common household items during the 1600s. The second example is a 1754 bill introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature to impose an excise tax on liquor. Lastly is Shays’ Rebellion, which occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786-87.
The aversion of “internal taxation” that early Americans felt can in part be traced back to historical British taxation methods. Prior to the beginning of 1600 members of the British Parliament voiced apprehension on imposing internal or inland taxes on their subjects. The normal method of taxation during this time was from individuals owning land and imported goods at seaports prior to being sold to the public. The first excise tax passed by Parliament occurred in 1643 to finance the civil war occurring in Britain at the time. The tax covered beer, ale, cider followed by the next year of salt, beef, and rabbits.[3]
The response from the public was immediate and violent, with rioting throughout the country. Even after Parliament modified the tax to exclude the poor on drinking beer and repealed the tax on beef and salt altogether in 1647, the violence continued for over a hundred years.[4] After the Glorious Revolution imposed a stronger parliament and limited monarchy, English political, thinking became more “liberal” in thought to personal liberties. These principles espoused by the Enlightenment thinker John Locke made the English people the freest country in the world. These ideals crossed the Atlantic with the earliest colonists and became the cornerstone of American political culture and intellectual thought. Any governmental act perceived to support the indiscriminate use of power or authority was seen as a threat to colonists’ liberties.[5]
Not all excise taxes were aimed at rural farmers, artisans, and the lower working class. The Massachusetts Legislature in 1754 introduced a bill to reform its current excise tax on liquor. The governor of Massachusetts William Shirley in 1754 saw war to be inevitable between the French and British Empires. He saw French encroachments in present day Maine and along the Kennebec River in Eastern Massachusetts as a threat that needed more forts, arms, supplies; and he increased taxes to defend the frontier from French and Indian attacks. The Governor tasked the colonial legislature to propose additional sources of revenue. The majority of the elected representatives of the legislature came from the rural interior. They proposed a reform on the current taxes on liquors by doubling the tax on imported liquors. In addition, the tax on liquor brought from a licensed dealer increased. It was clear these taxes were aimed at the upper class and individuals living on the coast and in larger cities. The only people that consumed imported liquors in any quantity were the rich. The proposed taxes caused intense and vocal debates in the press and countryside. The tax seen by rural villages and small towns was seen as “the rich might be obliged to pay as well as the Poor, and those in lower stations of life.” The upper class and merchants saw the older tax as “far more just and equal than the new, unprecedented, and dangerous way pointed out in the late Bill [new excise].”[6]
Not taking the new tax laying down, the merchants and upper classes developed a marketing plan based on the population’s inherent distrust of any government and taxes in general. Using pamphlets and newspaper articles to sow misinformation to the rural public, they implied menacing outcomes if the new tax became law. They used themes that the tax could destroy the state constitution, the destruction of people’s natural rights, and even could lead to oppressive taxes on more goods that would lead to the slavery of its citizens.[7] The upper class rhetoric did not stop the reformed excise bill from becoming law. What this anti-excise movement offers us is another example of the early American people’s views on taxation, governmental powers, and constitutional rights of its citizens.[8]
An important event leading to the Whiskey Rebellion was Shays’ Rebellion, which occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786-87. In the 1780s, seventy percent of Americans lived on small farms or the small rural villages located nearby. Their economy was barter based.[9] Culturally, these people relied on each other for survival with the old Puritan principles of the community meeting hall and the local militia still prevalent throughout western Massachusetts. Whether it was the mid-wife or helping ones neighbors with the harvest, this way of life was ingrained for generations.
Shays’ Rebellion can be seen as two distinctive cultures colliding: one made of rural farmers and self-reliant artisans, the other made of wealthy merchants, politicians, lawyers and speculators from the emerging commercial culture of the cities. This latter, a social class based on individualism tied to mercantilism, involved with the founding industrial sector. Their world was based on money. They saw change as not only good but inevitable.
After the War of Independence, many farmers, artisans, and veterans found themselves deeply in debt. This caused local law enforcement to serve judgments against them, resulting in many farms and small businesses being forced into foreclosure.[10] Many of these men found themselves placed in debtor’s prison. Unlike many states that passed laws forgiving debt, the Massachusetts Assembly did not. [11]
During the Revolutionary War, many veterans received fewer wage as was promised by the Continental Congress. Due to a lack of volunteers joining the American army in 1776, Congress added inducements for prospective enlistees. Promises included cash and land grants, with even officers offered half their pay for the rest of their lives. Soldiers not paid in full received “bills of promise.” Speculators bought these IOU’s for pennies on the dollars from desperate veteran farmers and tradesmen.[12] Post-independence, America found itself near insolvency. After the war the British refused to trade, and an economic depression occurred during the 1780s.
Farmers and artisan shops that had established themselves in desperation took high-interest loans. Many farmers that owned their land took out mortgages with high interest rates. The banking interests that loaned these monies came from large urban areas, such as Boston. These groups quickly lobbied the state governments to pass laws opening debtor’s courts throughout the state’s county seats. A section of the law stated that when payments are missed the lender could request payment in full. Unable to pay the notes in full, and with interest, the courts ruled against the framers and artisans, resulting in property sized and farms foreclosed. The lender could request debtor’s prison if the property and land seized did not match the amount of monies owed. In addition, voting laws passed that year increased the property qualifications needed for the average person to vote. At the time, Massachusetts as a state had one of the highest level of taxation in the nation.[13] The rural people of Massachusetts found themselves with less governmental representation and more taxation than under the British rule in 1760. Within this explosive cultural gap, a man named Daniel Shays emerged. Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, fought in some of the most famous battles of the Revolution, including Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga in New York. Leaving the service, he settled in western Massachusetts in 1780. Shays found his property taken in debtor’s court in August 1786. Shays joined the popular unrest and protests. That September, leading a group of men numbering in the hundreds, Shays marched on the courthouse in Springfield, forcing it to close. Buoyed by this success, in January of 1787 he attacked the federal arsenal with over a thousand men under arms.[14] The Massachusetts assembly wisely deployed the state militia to Springfield to prevent this and soundly defeated Shays force at the battle of Petersham. Shays fled to nearby states. Sentenced to death, labeled a traitor and a rebel, his fate appeared finished. It seemed the state governments would take a hard approach. However, within a year Shays was pardoned and later granted a pension for his service in the war.[15] A result of Shays’ Rebellion came in the form of state governments passing laws lowering taxes, reducing repayments and in some cases forgiving the debtors completely. The ruling upper class felt they lost economically, believing the new laws lessened their property rights. They feared these laws would bring additional violent uprisings from other social classes’ perceived injustices. These men of wealth became convinced a strong national government had to form to make consistent economic policies and protect their interests from disgruntled locals.[16]
By the latter half of the 1780s, the cultures of the western and eastern half of early America were so different it was akin to being in separate countries. Many Americans believed that in the near future the nation would divide, using the Appalachian Mountains as the border between these two new countries. A foreign traveler wrote in 1781, “a preparation of the federal union into two parts, at no distance day….was a matter of frequent discussion…and seemed to be an opinion that was daily gaining ground.”[17] Those that lived west of Appalachian Mountains found life extremely dangerous in comparison to their eastern citizens. The constant threat of Indian attack caused the western settlers to become self-reliant and helpful to their neighbors, having learned long ago that help and support from state governments or the federal government was lacking or nonexistent.
The political philosophy that matched the culture of the western frontier peoples is best described as a people’s movement. After earning their freedom from the British through years of hardship and war, these people expected a far different form of democracy and comparable economic fairness between the social classes. In early America, the advent of the Great Awakening gave fuel to the people’s movement. By 1770, the movement wanted laws to limit the profits of the few and have equal distribution of wealth and credit.[18] Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s actions contributed greatly in causing the Whiskey Rebellion. Elected to the confederation Congress in 1782, he was renowned as a self-taught master of finance, knowing more of the subject than anyone in the government does.[19] The final insult to the people of western America was his 1790 fiscal policies Hamilton proposed. These wide-ranging policies included the formation of the bank of the United States that was privately owned and control by a few extremely wealthy men. The bank owners made it clear that its loaning practices would not benefit the lower social classes with low interest on loans. These same owners and other wealthy individuals were also heavily involved in the opportunist buying of war debit from veterans and artisans. Hamilton proposed the repayment of war debit chits be paid in full to the individuals currently owning them. The majority of these men were wealthy speculators.[20] Hamilton over-ruled the widely popular idea of paying the veterans, farmers, laborers, or artisans. Like many in Shays’ Rebellion, these individuals were forced to sell their debit certificates for pennies on the dollars to feed their families and found themselves facing foreclosure procedures from the very same men that bought their debit. Finally, Hamilton imposed an excise tax on all distilled spirits. This tax was purposely written to benefit large distillers from the eastern seaboard that sold in bulk. The tax unfairly burdened the smaller family-run stills that were common throughout the western frontier. When this plan became law in March 1791, it proved that “the new government actively fostered policies that redistributed wealth from the public at large to a small number of wealthy individuals.” [21]
The citizens of western Pennsylvania responded as their forbearers had for generations concerning taxes. The same themes from past British and American tax revolts occurred throughout the state. The depriving of their personal freedoms, tax collecters entering homes and having lecherous intentions to its female occupants, and fears of the military enforcing the law became a common refrain in protests and publications. The ingrained cultural beliefs of rural American colonialist against centrally imposed taxation became a cornerstone of their political thought. [22]
Western anger rose to a fervid pitch. Large demonstrations and protests occurred in Pittsburg in 1791-92, demanding Congress address these perceived injustices. These same grievances became core issues in the Rebellion. At a meeting at Pittsburgh, on Sept. 7th, 1791 a leader was quoted, “insulting to the feelings of the people to have ... their houses ... ransacked, [and] to be subject to informers.” It would overburden the existing “scarcity of a circulating medium” and “bring immediate distress and ruin,” and because it would be used to pay off speculators who “make fortunes by the fortuitous concurrence of circumstances rather than by economic, virtuous and useful employment.”[23]
When it became clear, the petitions to Congress and pleas to Washington’s administration fell on deaf ears violence erupted throughout western PA. Examples of this violence included Robert Johnson, a tax collector attacked, tarred, and feathered in Washington County, PA in September 1791. Later when a deputy law officer served arrest warrants he too found himself tarred and feather.[24] In the same location men disguised as Indians attacked the rented home of the local whiskey tax collector and destroyed it. As in the early part of the American Revolution, committees of correspondence formed in many western states. As protests increased, violence began in other states and in more locations throughout Pennsylvania.[25]
Meanwhile back in Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, the only person in Washington’s administration becoming worried about the situation was the man that caused it: Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton became worried the rebellion would escalate throughout the country. Although protests erupted in the Carolinas, Kentucky, and western Virginia, Hamilton chose the western Pennsylvania frontier as the location to enforce federal governance: “Decision successfully exerted in one place will, it is presumable, be efficacious everywhere”[26]. Western Pennsylvania became the center of anti-excise tax activity with the most meetings, petitions, and committees. With its location near major cities and the newly proclaimed nation’s capital, his reasoning was to subdue the most vocal element, and the rest of the country would follow suit.[27] Hamilton urged Attorney General Randolph and President Washington to issue indictments for the arrests of prominent leaders of the protest. Hamilton told Washington, “I shall…exert all the legal powers with which the executive is invested, to check so daring and unwarranted a spirit”.[28] Washington agreed with Hamilton and instructed him to find evidence of sedition prior to issuing warrants. When Attorney General Randolph examined Hamilton’s evidence, he found no grounds to indict.[29] Randolph showed the minutes of meetings in Pittsburg contained non-violence clauses. The President and Hamilton thought the Pittsburg meetings a “contemptuous resistance to the law,” believing such meetings became the catalyst for the violence. With these beliefs, Hamilton drafted a paper to Washington that became the presidential proclamation against excise tax protests and meetings on September 15 1792.[30]
Even after the presidential proclamation, people refused to pay the excise-tax, and attacks continued. What the proclamation did was to stop the peaceful element of the rebellion. Those individuals met to prepare petitions and form committees. Into this vacuum, the more violent elements of the rebellion came to the forefront. As 1793 ended, no one in western Pennsylvania collected the tax for fear of assault. In May and late September of 1793 an armed band of black-faced men forcefully entered the home of the Fayette County, Pennsylvania tax collector Benjamin Wells. The blackening of faces was a common practice of lower class English uprisings for generations. Both times the band terrorized his family and finally forced him to resign from his appointed position.[31] The violence continued into 1794 when mobs attacked two homes in southwestern Pennsylvania that housed tax collectors. The men inside were dragged and were tarred and feathered. When men offered to testify against the attackers, their barns burned to the ground.[32]
Hamilton saw the threat to the federal government increasing; he formed a powerful group within the administration. One member was the federal District Attorney for Pennsylvania, William Rawle. Rawle issued arrest warrants in for over sixty farmers and distillers to appear in the federal court in Philadelphia. The United States Marshall of the region David Lenox began to serve these men their writs during the annual harvest when farmers worked together. He immediately encountered armed resistance. David Miller, a farmer in the area, refused the writ and, with his field hands, forced Lenox to flee. Lenox, acting to arrest these individuals, lit the fuse to the powder keg of social discontent and outright mass rebellion.
Reacting to Marshall’s warrants on 16th and 17th July, several hundred armed men descended upon the home of General John Neville in Bower Hill in Washington County. Neville had been appointed personally by President Washington as the regional excise tax collector supervisor. Besieging his property, the men demanded all the tax records and his resignation.[33] After a two day battle, the Neville family and servants fled for their lives. The large farm with its many out buildings burned to the ground. [34] 1 August found 7,000 men, many non-property owners, forming nearby at Braddock’s Field. Fearing its cannons and defenses, the rebels decided not to attack the federal arsenal located at Fort Pitt across the river from Pittsburg.[35] Instead, what was more of a rabble than a fighting force located seven perceived government sympathizers, chased them from Pittsburg, and in the process destroyed two of their homes.[36] As the month of August progressed, the raising of liberty poles with the new flag of the rebels began to fly over three towns. With increasing violence centered on property burning, tarring, and feathering, the federal government found the rebellion spreading to eastern Pennsylvania and some southern states.
An August 14 meeting at Parkinson’s Ferry turned the insurrection in a direction that left the federal government only one choice: military intervention. The meeting was composed of 226 mostly radical delegates representing the six counties involved in the rebellion. A few moderate delegates talked of peace and working within the government to repel the tax. It soon became clear from the radicals that the whiskey tax was just a symbol of social injustice. What the delegates really wanted was a forceful and violent redistribution of land and wealth.[37] When news of what the leaders of the rebellion advocated reached Washington the alarm within the administration was tremendous. As Washington prepared for war, the governor of Pennsylvania begged the administration to allow the state government to resolve the rebellion, but this was ignored. On August 7, Washington issued a presidential proclamation ordering all resistance to end. With continued pleas from the governor of Pennsylvania, Washington finally allowed a peace commission to be sent to Pittsburg.[38]
Hamilton ensured his supporters became appointed and no movement to a settlement occurred.[39] In August, the government mobilized over 12,000 militia members from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In September, the four state militias converged on the town of Carlisle, PA. President Washington personally led this force from October 4 through 20 October before returning to Philadelphia for the upcoming congressional session. Washington selected western Pennsylvania for military intervention for several reasons. The United States, in its infancy, appeared weak to the nations of Europe. Washington’s administration believed the perception of weakness would be magnified if lower class dissension went unchecked. It became critical to the federal government that overwhelming force be used to make a statement to other lower-class Americans’ thinking of rebellion.[40] Hamilton continued with the army, then led by General Henry Lee-Virginia’s Governor.[41] Facing a large national army, the rebels melted away. Not a single shot was fired; the only protest noted was the raising of liberty poles as the army moved through local towns, including Carlisle PA[42]. For the next week, “a kind of inquisitorial court was opened,” composed of Hamilton, Peters, and Rawle that went from town to town-taking testimony against men involved in the rebellion.[43] The government arrested twenty men and later a grand jury indicted twenty-four for trail in Philadelphia.[44] Many escape captured and only ten stood trail; two received convictions. Later George Washington pardoned both.[45] The Whiskey Tax was repealed when Thomas Jefferson of the Republic Party became President in 1801.[46] The rebellion helped with the formation of political parties. This allowed lower class individuals a means to express themselves politically instead of violently. What is important about this event is the lasting legacy of the power of the federal government. The willingness of the federal government to deploy federal forces in domestic turmoil is common. Examples include coal miners striking in Colorado in the 1920s, to enforcements of laws during the civil rights era, to civil unrest like the Watts Riots. In all of these examples the cause of federal intervention was the perceived injustice of various social classes.
[1] Holt, The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794: A Democratic Working-Class Insurrection p 1
[2] Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion George Washing, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty 189
[3] Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution 12
[4] Slaughter, 13
[5] Lowell, "The 1754 Excise on Spirituous Liquors: Taxes, Political Rhetoric, and the English Concept of Liberty in Eighteenth- century Colonial Massachusetts" 3
[6] Lowell, 4
[7] Lowell, 5
[8] Lowell, 6
[9] Szatmary, 5-7
[10] Szatmary, 29
[11] Parker, 100
[12] Saylor.org 2
[13] Parker, Shays’ Rebellion: An Episode in American State-Making 99
[14] Parker, 101
[15] Saylor 4
[16] Saylor 5
[17] Slaughter, 30
[18] Hogeland, 34
[19] Hogeland, 29
[20] Hogeland, 59
[21] Holt, 8
[22] Slaughter, 17
[23] Holt, 9
[24] Hogeland, 103
[25] Slaughter, 109
[26] Slaughter, 119
[27] Slaughter, 120
[28] Slaughter, 121
[29] Hogeland, 124
[30] Slaughter, 121
[31] Slaughter, 151
[32] Hogeland, 130
[33] Hogeland, 153
[34] Holt,10
[35] Slaughter, 186
[36] Hogeland 170-173
[37] Hogeland,182
[38] Holt, 11
[39] Slaughter, 199
[40] Slaughter, 117-120
[41] Slaughter, 216
[42] Slaughter, 208
[43] Holt, 63
[44] Slaughter, 219
[45] Hogeland, 238
[46] Hogeland, 242