Whiskey Rebellion

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WHISKEY REBELLION

WHISKEY REBELLION (1794). Residents of the American backcountry in the 1790s were intensely democratic and resented the fiscal policies of the secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, which concentrated power in the hands of the upper classes. Their many grievances included the failure to open the Mississippi River to navigation, the dilatory conduct of the Indian wars, the speculative prices of land, arduous and ill-paid militia duty, scarcity of specie, and the creation of a salaried official class. The excise law of 1791, which taxed whiskey—the chief transportable and barterable western product—furnished a convenient peg on which to hang these grievances, and for three years the opposition to this measure escalated.

Tensions erupted during the summer of 1794 in western Pennsylvania. Distillers caught violating the law were forced to travel to York or Philadelphia for trial, an onerous journey that would cost the value of the average western farm. Congress in May and June 1794 acknowledged the inequity and passed a measure making offenses against the excise law cognizable in state courts. While the bill was in Congress, the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania issued a series of processes returnable to Philadelphia. However, these processes were not served until July, six weeks after the easing measure was passed. While serving a process, a federal marshal was attacked by angered residents in Allegheny County, and on 17 July several hundred men, led by members of a local "Democratic society," besieged and burned the home of General John Neville, the regional inspector of the excise.

The attackers would probably have stopped there, but certain leaders robbed the mail and found in the stolen letters expressions that they used to incite an attack on Pittsburgh. The southwestern militia was mustered at Braddock's Field on 1 August. The citizens of Pittsburgh were so alarmed that they exiled the odious townsmen, including Neville. The militia marched without violence on Pittsburgh on 2 August. Nevertheless, on 7 August President George Washington issued a proclamation ordering the disaffected westerners to their homes and called up the militia from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

On 14–15 August delegates from the Monongahela Valley metat Parkinson's Ferry, but were prevented from drastic measures by the parliamentary tactics of the moderates. A committee appointed by Washington met with a western committee and arranged to poll the people of the western counties on their willingness to submit. The vote was unsatisfactory, and Washington set in motion the militia army that had meanwhile been gathering in the East. The western counties were occupied during November, and more than a score of prisoners were sent to Philadelphia. All of them were acquitted or pardoned, or the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence.

The federal government had passed the first serious test of its enforcement powers. The rebellion strengthened the political power of Hamilton and the Federalist Party. Circumstantial evidence seems to indicate that Hamilton promoted the original misunderstanding and sent the army west solely for that purpose. It is likely also that the defeat of the frontiermen encouraged investors to accelerate the economic development of the region that they had already begun.