Whiskey Rebellion

A significant threat to the authority of the newly formed republican government of the United States, the Whiskey Rebellion began as a protest of farmers and laborers on the western Pennsylvania frontier against the excise tax in the early 1790s. By 1794, the rebellion turned violent, culminating in the march of an estimated 7,000 rebels on Pittsburgh. Ultimately, the administration of President George Washington issued a proclamation condemning the whiskey rebels and mobilized an army of 15,000 militiamen to suppress the uprising.

It was on March 3, 1791, that the new Congress passed the whiskey excise tax. Supporters of the tax, such as Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, thought that it would help pay down the war debt and secure the financial underpinnings of the new American economy. In the inhabited regions west of the Appalachians, however, white settlers relied on whiskey as a source of income and used it as currency to barter for essential goods and supplies. Because the excise was a direct tax on the frontier farmers who produced distilled grains, many people in the West feared that the tax would lead to their economic ruin.

At first, the federal government did not vigorously enforce the collection of the excise tax. Therefore, western Pennsylvanians largely confined their opposition to noncompliance and other nonviolent forms of protest. They held mass meetings to protest the tax and sent their petitions to the federal government asking for its repeal. In the summer of 1794, federal marshal David Lenox began to summon whiskey distillers who refused to pay the tax to trial in distant Philadelphia. This triggered the outbreak of increasing violence in the region. On July 15, an armed mob attacked both Lenox and John Neville, the chief excise collector for the region. The mob continued to harass Neville, burning down his mansion 2 days later.

These protests culminated in the march of 7,000 settlers on Pittsburgh in early August 1794. The rebellion came to encompass a frontierwide insurrection, when similar revolts erupted in the backcountry regions of Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas against the excise tax. Fearing that the insurrection would continue to spread further, the Washington administration sent an army of 15,000 militiamen to western Pennsylvania. By early fall of 1794, when the troops arrived in the region, the rebels had already dispersed. Federal troops arrested 150 men, 24 of whom were sent to Philadelphia to be tried for treason. Ultimately, a federal court convicted two of the whiskey rebels and sentenced them to death, but President Washington pardoned them.