(1794) An insurrection of farmers in W Pennsylvania, USA, against the excise tax imposed by the federal government on whiskey, which they made in large quantities from their crops of grain. The rebellion was suppressed by government forces led by Henry Lee (17561818) and Alexander Hamilton.
The Whiskey Rebellion 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. It was conducted by Appalachian settlers who resisted the excise tax on liquor and distilled drinks. This tax had been proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Washington.
Background
The weak and ineffective government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation had been replaced by a stronger federal government under the United States Constitution in 1789. One of the steps taken to pay down the debt, that was requested by Hamilton, and approved by Congress, was a tax imposed in 1791 on distilled spirits. Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. However, smaller producers, most of whom were Scottish or Irish descent located in the more remote western areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a 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.
From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors.
Rebellion
The tax on whiskey was bitterly opposed on the frontier from the day it was passed.
By the summer of 1794, tensions reached a fevered pitch all along the western frontier as the pioneer/settlers primary source of commerce was threatened by the federal taxation measures.
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 the Militia Law of 1792 to summon the militias of Pennsylvania, Virginia and several states.
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 marched to Western Pennsylvania (to what is now Monongahela, Pennsylvania) and quickly suppressed the revolt.
Consequences
This marked the first time under the new constitution that the federal government had used military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens.
The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers and other settlers to relocate to more distant lands in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. This is shown in the 1794 Philadelphia congressional election, in which upstart Democratic Repubican 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.
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