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I like comparing US history books. I thought I'd share a then and now on a topic and see if you guys like it.
Now (from Wikipedia) it sounds like some people protested a tax:
"The Whiskey Rebellion, also known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791, during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. It became law in 1791, and was intended to generate revenue to help reduce the national debt.[3] Although the tax applied to all distilled spirits, whiskey was by far the most popular distilled beverage in the 18th-century U.S. Because of this, the excise became widely known as a "whiskey tax". The new excise was a part of U.S. treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton's program to pay war debt incurred during the American Revolutionary War.
The tax was resisted by farmers in the western frontier regions who were long accustomed to distilling their surplus grain and corn into whiskey. In these regions, whiskey was sufficiently popular that it often served as a medium of exchange. Many of the resisters were war veterans who believed that they were fighting for the principles of the American Revolution, in particular against taxation without local representation, while the U.S. federal government maintained the taxes were the legal expression of the taxation powers of Congress."
Then: (History of the United States - McMaster 1885) it sounds like some people were protesting a tax only on their region's currency and not others', and the legal system to protest these created a significant burden.
"What a bank-bill was at Philadelphia or a shilling -piece at Lancaster, that was whiskey in the towns and villages that lay along the banks of the Monongahela river. It was the money, the circulating medium of the country. A gallon of good rye whiskey, at every store at Pittsburg, and at every farm-house in the four counties of Washington, Westmoreland, Alleghany, and Fayette, was the equivalent of a shilling piece. A tax of seven cents a gallon was, therefore a crushing one. (Explained first proof is 7 cents, 2nd proof 8 cents....)
The people held it to be iniquitous, and every man who paid it a public enemy. If a collector came among them he was attacked, his books and papers taken, his commission torn up, and a solemn promise exacted that he would publish his resignation in the Pittsburg Gazette. If a farmer gave information as to where the stills could be found, his barns were burned. If a distiller entered his still as the law required he was sure to be visited by a masked mob. <snip> One unhappy man, who had rashly rented his house to a collector, was visited at the dead of night by a mob of blackened and disguised men. He was seized, carried to the woods, shorn of his hair, tarred, feathered and bound to a tree.
The maskers who took part in such acts the name of Tom the Tinker applied. The term was not one of reproach. <snip> The State courts had no jurisdiction over excise suites; that every man who did not enter his still, who did not pay his tax, who did not suffer the inspector to pry into his cellar or his barn, could be forced to quit his hay field or his grain field, go over the mountains to Philadelphia, and stand trial in a Federal Court for offences he had committed in a district three hundred and fifty miles away. This complaint was felt to be so just and reasonable that Congress, early in 1794, attempted to remove it. <snip>
Now Wikipedia: (It sounds like rioters attacked a tax inspector without cause)
Throughout counties in Western Pennsylvania, protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed men attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville.
Then McMaster: (It sounds like a still broken tax official was haughty and incited a local populace.)
"The matter (bill of Congress) was still under debate in Congress when a process went out from the District Court...(to serve orders)..."But the officials were so tardy, that it was July when the Marshal rode West to serve them. He arrived in the hurry of harvest, when liquor circulated most freely and drunkenness was most prevalent. Yet he served his writs without harm till but one was left. It was drawn against a distiller named Miller, whos house was 14 miles from Pittsburg on the road to Washington. On the morning of July 15th, the Marshallset out from Pittsburg to serve it. he found Miller in a harvest-filed surrounded by a body of reapers. All went well till he was about to return, when one of them gave the alarm. While some threw down their scythes and followed him, others ran back to the house of the brigade inspector near by. There the Mingo Creek regiment had gathered to make a select corps of militia as its quota of eighty thousand minute-men required by Congress. All had drunk deeply, and as the messengers came up shouting. "The Federal Sheriff is taking away men to Philadelphia," they flew to arms. Though it was then night, many set off at once, and, gathering strength as they went, drew up the next morning, thirty-seven strong, before the house of the Revenue Inspector Neville, near Pittsburg. At the head of them was that John Holcroft who had whitened half the trees in the four couties with the effusions of Tom the Tinker. The inspector demanded what they wished. They answered evasively. He fired upon them. The returned the shot, and were instantly opened on by a band of (African Americans) posted in a neighboring house. At this the mob scattered, leaving six wounded and one dead.
Made more furious than ever by the loss of their companions, the malcontents spent the day in spreading the news and exciting the people. At nightfall, five hundred armed men were gathered at Couche's Fort, a few miles from the inspector's house. Among them was a minister named Clark, whose age and good deeds made him respected by the most reckless in the community. He besought the crowd that stood about him to be orderly and go back to their homes. But they would not hear him, put a revolutionary soldier in command and marched to the house of Inspector Neville. He was gone, and in his stead were a major and eleven soldiers from Fort Pitt. When the rioters had come near the house they halted and sent forward a truce. The flag-bearer demanded the papers of the inspector. He was told the inspector was gone. he then asked that six men might be allowed to search for the papers. This was refused. He thereupon warned the women to quit the building. A few minutes later the firing began. When it had gone on for some time a shout was heard from the house. The officer who commanded the mob stepped from behind a tree to bid his men cease firing. The next instant he fell forward on his face, dead. While some bore his body to a place of shelter, others prepared to storm the building and set fire to the barn. From the barn the flames spread to the out-buildings, from the out-buildings to the house, and the troops, half smothered by smoke, marched out and surrendered.
Yes, according to the older history book, first a small meeting was held. It was civil and western PA was to adopt the taxation laws. The PA representatives were immediately scolded for selling out to Federal Gold. A larger meeting was then held, but the local government didn't want trouble and played for the middle to call for another meeting, but the Fed would not delay further...thus prompting Washington to call forth the armies to put down the rebellion.
Washington's writing is remarkable. It's amazing how many seriously educated leaders we had.
“Whereas from a hope, that the combinations against the constitution and laws of the United States, in certain of the Western counties of Pennsylvania would yield to time and reflection, I thought it sufficient, in the first instance, rather to take measures for calling forth the militia, than immediately to embody them; – but the moment is now come, when the overtures of forgiveness with no other condition, than a submission to law, have been only partially accepted – when every form of conciliation not inconsistent with the being of government has been adopted, without affect; …when the opportunity of examining the serious consequences of a treasonable opposition has been employed in propagating principles of anarchy, endeavoring through emissaries to alienate the friends of order from its support, and inviting enemies to perpetrate similar acts of insurrection, – when it is manifest, that violence would continue to be exercised upon every attempt to enforce the laws – When therefore, Government is set at defiance, the contest being whether a small proportion of the United States shall dictate to the whole union, and at the expense of those, who desire peace, indulge a desperate ambition :
Now therefore I George Washington, President of the United States in obedience to that high and irresistible duty consigned to me by the Constitution ‘to take care that the laws be faithfully executed :’ – deploring that the American name should be sullied by the outrages of citizens on their own government ; commiserating such, as remain obstinate from delusion ;–but resolved in perfect reliance on that gracious providence which so signally displays its goodness towards this country to reduce the refractory to a due subordination to the law ;–Do hereby declare and make known, that with a satisfaction, which can be equalled only by the merits of the militia summoned into service from the States of New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, I have received intelligence of their…obeying the call of the present…that a force…is already in motion to the scene of disaffection ;–that those who have confided, or shall confide in the protection of government, shall meet full succour under the standard and from the arms of the United States ;–that those who having offended against the laws have since entitled themselves to indemnity, will be treated with the most liberal good faith, if they shall not have forfeited their claim by any subsequent conduct… And I do moreover exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading directly or indirectly to those crimes, which produce this resort to military coercion : to check, in their respective spheres, the efforts of misguided or designing men to substitute their misrepresentation in the place of truth and their discontents in the place of stable government ;–and to call to mind that as the people of the United States have been permitted under the Divine favour in perfect freedom, after solemn deliberation, and in an enlightened age, to elect their own government ; so well [sic] their gratitude for this inestimable blessing be best distinguished by firm exertions to maintain the constitution and the laws…”
So disconcerting was the rebellion that it spurred the convening of the Constitutional convention.
Like now, folks wanted things from the government but didn't want to pay for it. The government was deeply in debt as a result borrowing to finance the Revolution. Hamilton saw the tax as a viable method to retire the debt, the famers did not.
Articles of Confederation - Created November 1777, ratified March 1781.
Shays' Rebellion - August 1786 to June 1787.
United States Constitution - Created September 1787, ratified June 1788, First Congress March 1789.
Whiskey Rebellion - 1791 - June 1794.
Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion were both popular uprisings, but had different causes, different geographical locations, different government responses, and different resolutions.
The actual rebellion is less interesting to me than why the tax on whiskey (and not some other product) was created. The rebellion was in part against the over-reach of the conservative church groups that wanted an end to alcohol and utilized the frame of it being a social evil or frivolity to encourage a selective tax "in the greater good."
Imagine if today Muslim clerics petitioned Congress for a selective tax on all pork products in the U.S., and that tax was passed and enforced in BBQ country. Or imagine a group of Rabbis getting a selective law passed that targeted lobster as a social evil, taxing it heavily to pay for the war on terror while decimating Maine lobstermen.
The bottom line is that it was easier to get a law targeting whiskey passed than a general taxation based upon income or property. Fewer people complained, more supported it, and it led to people with power being able to control a market to their own financial advantage.
Washington had an elementary school education, so he was not "seriously educated." He cultivated a persona of civility and class.
Wherever he got it from, I'll take it.
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