The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 helped bring about the demise of the aristocratic Federalist Government in favor of the democratic Republican Government, concerned with the needs of all of its citizens.The new country of the United States of America suffered many growing pains in trying to balance its commitment to liberty with the need for order. How much control is enough and what will be too much? After the Revolutionary War, the country purposely did not have a strong central government (that's what we fought against with the British). The states did as they pleased because the Articles of Confederation in 1781 gave them every power, jurisdiction and right not expressly delegated to the Continental Congress. Congress had no power to tax, regulate commerce, draft troops, or enforce foreign treaties. It was mainly a friendly overseer: thus the expression "the Do-Nothing Congress." Each state considered itself sovereign, free and independent, and easterners and westerners were separated by geography as well as their own concerns. To make matters worse, Spain and Britain were wreaking havoc along our borders. British troops, violating the Treaty of Paris, refused to vacate their garrisons along th
By August, 1794, Hamilton had urged George Washington to intervene. One was a tariff on imports, which Hamilton saw as a way to raise money as well as to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. A new federal system of government was set forth which distributed powers between the state and federal government and created three branches of government as checks and balances for each other. In order to pass his assumption bill to pay the states' debts, Hamilton and the Federalists needed the support of the southern states. Hamilton was a leader of the Federalists, those who envisioned a strong national government with centralized authority, a complex commercial economy and a proud standing in world affairs. The rebels lost their military battle after only six months, but they succeeded in gaining some tax relief and postponement of paying debts. Bloodshed between the rebels and local militia followed over the next two years. The tariff on imports was beneficial to the urban industrialists, whom aristocratic Hamilton considered more important, but the excise tax on whiskey was a severe burden to the "lowly" western farmers The whiskey tax was just one of the many slaps in the face to the western farmers. States had the power to levy taxes. The more sophisticated easterners favored wine to the hard stuff, and did not drink as great quantity as the farmers in the backcountry. e Great Lakes; Spain, who held New Orleans, closed the Mississippi River to American shipping below Nachez and actively encouraged American settlers to break away from the Union and establish relations with them; Westerners in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Pennsylvania were subjected to attacks by marauding Indians (often instigated by the Spanish and British). In the hot, humid summer of 1787 state delegates met for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and drafted a new frame of government for the United States: the United States Constitution. In 1786-1787, Captain Daniel Shays, a veteran of the Revolution, led a ragtag army of rebels to protest these unfair taxes. He believed that a stable and effective government required an elite, well-bred ruling class.
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