Older accounts of the Whiskey Rebellion portrayed it as being confined to western Pennsylvania, yet there was opposition to the whiskey tax in the western counties of every other state in Appalachia Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
List of historical acts of tax resistance - Wikipedia
In August , a second convention was held in Pittsburgh to discuss resistance to the whiskey tax. This meeting was more radical than the first convention; moderates such as Brackenridge and Findley were not in attendance. Future Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin was one moderate who did attend, to his later regret. As some of them had done in the American Revolution, they raised liberty poles , formed committees of correspondence , and took control of the local militia.
They created an extralegal court and discouraged lawsuits for debt collection and foreclosures. Hamilton regarded the second Pittsburgh convention as a serious threat to the operation of the laws of the federal government. In September , he sent Pennsylvania tax official George Clymer to western Pennsylvania to investigate.
Clymer only increased tensions with a clumsy attempt at traveling in disguise and attempting to intimidate local officials. His somewhat exaggerated report greatly influenced the decisions made by the Washington administration. On his own initiative, Hamilton drafted a presidential proclamation denouncing resistance to the excise laws and submitted it to Attorney General Randolph, who toned down some of the language.
Washington signed the proclamation on September 15, , and it was published as a broadside and printed in many newspapers. Federal tax inspector for western Pennsylvania General John Neville was determined to enforce the excise law. He had initially opposed the whiskey tax, but subsequently changed his mind, a reversal that angered some western Pennsylvanians. Anonymous notes and newspaper articles signed by "Tom the Tinker " threatened those who complied with the whiskey tax.
Resistance to the excise tax continued through in the frontier counties of Appalachia. Opposition remained especially strident in western Pennsylvania. Wells was, like Neville, one of the wealthier men in the region. The resistance came to a climax in In May of that year, federal district attorney William Rawle issued subpoenas for more than 60 distillers in Pennsylvania who had not paid the excise tax.
For farmers on the western frontier, such a journey was expensive, time-consuming, and beyond their means. Attorney General William Bradford later maintained that the writs were meant to compel compliance with the law, and that the government did not actually intend to hold trials in Philadelphia. The timing of these events later proved to be controversial. Findley was a bitter political foe of Hamilton, and he maintained in his book on the insurrection that the treasury secretary had deliberately provoked the uprising by issuing the subpoenas just before the law was made less onerous.
Morison believed that Hamilton, in general, wished to enforce the excise law "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue". Federal Marshal Lenox delivered most of the writs without incident. On July 15, he was joined on his rounds by General Neville, who had offered to act as his guide in Allegheny County.
Neville returned home while Lenox retreated to Pittsburgh. Neville responded by firing a gunshot that mortally wounded Oliver Miller, one of the "rebels". The next day, the rebels returned to Bower Hill. Their force had swelled to nearly men, now commanded by Major James McFarlane, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Army soldiers from Pittsburgh under the command of Major Abraham Kirkpatrick, Neville's brother-in-law.
David Lenox and General Neville's son Presley Neville also returned to the area, though they could not get into the house and were captured by the rebels. Following some fruitless negotiations, the women and children were allowed to leave the house, and then both sides began firing. After about an hour, McFarlane called a ceasefire; according to some, a white flag had been waved in the house. As McFarlane stepped into the open, a shot rang out from the house, and he fell mortally wounded.
The enraged rebels then set fire to the house, including the slave quarters, and Kirkpatrick surrendered. Kirkpatrick, Lenox, and Presley Neville were kept as prisoners, but they later escaped.
McFarlane was given a hero's funeral on July His "murder", as the rebels saw it, further radicalized the countryside. Radical leaders emerged, such as David Bradford , urging violent resistance. On July 26, a group headed by Bradford robbed the U. On August 1, about 7, people gathered at Braddock's Field. The furor over the whiskey excise had unleashed anger about other economic grievances.
By this time, the victims of violence were often wealthy property owners who had no connection to the whiskey tax. There was praise for the French Revolution and calls for bringing the guillotine to America. David Bradford, it was said, was comparing himself to Robespierre , a leader of the French Reign of Terror. Radicals flew a specially designed flag that proclaimed their independence. The flag had six stripes, one for each county represented at the gathering: Pittsburgh citizens helped to defuse the threat by banishing three men whose intercepted letters had given offense to the rebels, and by sending a delegation to Braddock's Field that expressed support for the gathering.
In Pittsburgh, Major Kirkpatrick's barns were burned, but nothing else. A convention was held on August 14 of whiskey rebels from the six counties, held at Parkison's Ferry now known as Whiskey Point in present-day Monongahela. The convention considered resolutions which were drafted by Brackenridge, Gallatin, David Bradford, and an eccentric preacher named Herman Husband , a delegate from Bedford County.
Husband was a well-known local figure and a radical champion of democracy who had taken part in the Regulator movement in North Carolina 25 years earlier. President Washington was confronted with what appeared to be an armed insurrection in western Pennsylvania, and he proceeded cautiously while determined to maintain governmental authority. He did not want to alienate public opinion, so he asked his cabinet for written opinions about how to deal with the crisis. The cabinet recommended the use of force, except for Secretary of State Edmund Randolph who urged reconciliation.
Washington privately doubted that the commissioners could accomplish anything, and believed that a military expedition would be needed to suppress further violence. Meanwhile, Hamilton began publishing essays under the name of "Tully" in Philadelphia newspapers, denouncing mob violence in western Pennsylvania and advocating military action.
Democratic-Republican Societies had been formed throughout the country, and Washington and Hamilton believed that they were the source of civic unrest. Before troops could be raised, the Militia Act of required a justice of the United States Supreme Court to certify that law enforcement was beyond the control of local authorities.
On August 4, , Justice James Wilson delivered his opinion that western Pennsylvania was in a state of rebellion. He commanded insurgents in western Pennsylvania to disperse by September 1. In early August , Washington dispatched three commissioners to the west, all of them Pennsylvanians: Beginning on August 21, the commissioners met with a committee of westerners that included Brackenridge and Gallatin.
The government commissioners told the committee that it must unanimously agree to renounce violence and submit to U. Those who agreed to these terms would be given amnesty from further prosecution. The committee was divided between radicals and moderates, and narrowly passed a resolution agreeing to submit to the government's terms. The popular referendum was held on September 11 and also produced mixed results. Some townships overwhelmingly supported submitting to U. Washington and Hamilton declined, arguing that violence was likely to re-emerge if the army turned back.
Under the authority of the recently passed federal militia law, the state militias were called up by the governors of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The federalized militia force of 12, men was a large army by American standards of the time, comparable to Washington's armies during the Revolution.
Draft evasion was widespread, and conscription efforts resulted in protests and riots, even in eastern areas. Three counties in eastern Virginia were the scenes of armed draft resistance. In Maryland, Governor Thomas Sim Lee sent men to quash an anti-draft riot in Hagerstown ; about people were arrested. Liberty poles were raised in various places as the militia was recruited, worrying federal officials. A liberty pole was raised in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on September 11, Two civilians were killed in these operations.
On September 29, an unarmed boy was shot by an officer whose pistol accidentally fired. Two days later, an "Itinerant Person" was "Bayoneted" to death by a soldier while resisting arrest the man had tried to wrest the rifle from the soldier he confronted; it is possible he had been a member of a strong Irish work crew nearby who were "digging, a canal into the Sculkill" [sic]; at least one of that work gang's members protested the killing so vigorously that he was "put under guard".
A state judge determined that the deaths had been accidental, and the soldiers were released.
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Washington left Philadelphia which at that time was the capital of the United States on September 30 to review the progress of the military expedition. Along the way he traveled to Reading, Pennsylvania on his way to meet up with the rest of the militia he ordered mobilized at Carlisle. October 3d Marched early in the morning for Harrisburgh sic , where we arrived about 12 O'clock.
About 1 O'Clock recd. Being afterwards invited to his quarters he made enquiry into the circumstances of the man [an incident between an "Itinerant Person" and "an Old Soldier" mentioned earlier in the journal p. Washington met with the western representatives in Bedford, Pennsylvania on October 9 before going to Fort Cumberland in Maryland to review the southern wing of the army. Washington returned to Philadelphia; Hamilton remained with the army as civilian adviser.
Daniel Morgan , a general key to the winning of the American Revolution, was called up to lead a force to suppress the protest. It was at this time that Morgan was promoted to Major General. After the uprising had been suppressed, Morgan commanded the remnant of the army that remained until in Pennsylvania, some 1, militiamen, one of whom was Meriwether Lewis. The insurrection collapsed as the federal army marched west into western Pennsylvania in October Some of the most prominent leaders of the insurrection, such as David Bradford, fled westward to safety. It took six months for those who were charged to be tried.
Most were acquitted due to mistaken identity, unreliable testimony and lack of witnesses. The only two convicted of treason and sentenced to hang were John Mitchell and Philip Wigle. They were later pardoned by Washington. Immediately before the arrests " Instead, when the militia at last turned back, out of all the suspects they had seized a mere twenty were selected to serve as examples, They were at worst bit players in the uprising, but they were better than nothing.
The captured participants and the Federal militia arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas Day.
Some artillery was fired and church bells were heard as " The captured rebels were paraded down Broad Street being 'humiliated, bedragged, [and] half-starved Other accounts describe the indictment of 24 men for high treason. Wigle had beaten up a tax collector and burned his house; Mitchell was a simpleton who had been convinced by David Bradford to rob the U. Both men were sentenced to death by hanging, but they were pardoned by President Washington.
Opponents of internal taxes rallied around the candidacy of Thomas Jefferson and helped him defeat President John Adams in the election of By , Congress repealed the distilled spirits excise tax and all other internal Federal taxes. Until the War of , the Federal government would rely solely on import tariffs for revenue, which quickly grew with the Nation's expanding foreign trade. The Washington administration's suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion met with widespread popular approval.
It was, therefore, viewed by the Washington administration as a success, a view that has generally been endorsed by historians. The Rebellion raised the question of what kinds of protests were permissible under the new Constitution. Legal historian Christian G. Fritz argued that there was not yet a consensus about sovereignty in the United States, even after ratification of the Constitution.
Federalists believed that the government was sovereign because it had been established by the people; radical protest actions were permissible during the American Revolution but were no longer legitimate, in their thinking. But the Whiskey Rebels and their defenders believed that the Revolution had established the people as a "collective sovereign", and the people had the collective right to change or challenge the government through extra-constitutional means.
Historian Steven Boyd argued that the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion prompted anti-Federalist westerners to finally accept the Constitution and to seek change by voting for Republicans rather than resisting the government. Federalists, for their part, came to accept the public's role in governance and no longer challenged the freedom of assembly and the right to petition.
Soon after the Whiskey Rebellion, actress-playwright Susanna Rowson wrote a stage musical about the insurrection entitled The Volunteers , with music by composer Alexander Reinagle. The play is now lost, but the songs survive and suggest that Rowson's interpretation was pro-Federalist. The musical celebrates as American heroes the militiamen who put down the rebellion, the "volunteers" of the title. Fields recorded a comedy track in Les Paul 's studio in , shortly before his death, entitled "The Temperance Lecture" for the album W.
The bit discussed Washington and his role in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion, and Fields wondered aloud whether "George put down a little of the vile stuff too. In it, Albert Gallatin joins the rebellion in to benefit the farmers, rather than the fledgling US Government as he did in reality.
Fries's Rebellion
This results in the rebellion becoming a Second American Revolution. This eventually leads to George Washington being overthrown and executed for treason, the abrogation of the Constitution , and Gallatin being proclaimed the second president and serving as president until David Liss ' novel The Whiskey Rebels covers many of the circumstances during —92 that led to the Rebellion. This annual event is held in July and includes live music, food, and historic reenactments, featuring the "tar and feathering" of the tax collector. Much primary source historical material has been preserved and exists in archives.
A list of institutions that possess holdings and examples are:. I am extremely thrilled that you printed my song in your folk singing article. I love music and Joan Baez. Copper Kettle was written in as part of my opera Go Lightly Stranger. Thirty men went on trial in Federal court. Fries and two others were tried for treason and, with Federalists stirring up a frenzy, were sentenced to be hanged. President John Adams pardoned Fries and others convicted of treason. Adams was prompted by the narrower constitutional definition of treason, and he later added that the rebels were "as ignorant of our language as they were of our laws" and were being used by "great men" in the opposition party.
He issued a general amnesty for everyone involved on May 21, Historians are agreed that the Federalists overreacted and mishandled a small episode. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Retrieved August 23, The rise and fall of Alexander Hamilton. Conscientious objection to military taxation List of historical acts of tax resistance Tax resistance in the United States List of tax resisters. A Protest Vyborg Manifesto. Tuchin Revolt Harelle Peasants' Revolt. Cornish Rebellion of Croquant rebellions Rappenkrieg Revolt of the Pitauds. Armed conflicts involving the United States Armed Forces. List of conflicts in the U. List of wars involving the U.
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