whiskey rebelion

Introduction:Many Leaders identified civil disobedience in different centuries mostly nineteenth or twentieth but American civil disobedience has a long history, it goes as far back in the eighteenth century. Behind this particular civil disobedience was not a single man stubbornly defending his position in a jail neither it was a charismatic leader preaching nonviolent methods to end violent nor it was a leader emerging from suppression to end discrimination and demand rights of his own people. There were definitely leaders and followers and they were stubborn and committed but definitely not a minority but rather it was the masses who roared, the entire region of Kentucky came out on the roads. Except for a few petitions, there is no record them being vocal about their position. There is no record of their breaking the law by the government except a few perpetrators in the documents.The record of this early mass civil disobedience lies in the lower federal courts in Kentucky, the Harry Innes papers in the manuscript division of the library of congress, and the revenue official correspondence in a long lost file in the national achieves. But the most widely used collection by the historians of early American republic was American State papers. Combine all how these show a remarkable story of tax evasion and how the entire population of Kentucky managed to resist the laws of the state for a long eight years. Ironically the same hated excise made by Hamilton gained acceptance after Jefferson became president. Civil disobedience is a serious dilemma which is mostly caused by war, political under representation and inequality but it was unusual to be evoked by an internal revenue measure and resisted by the masses. In fact it was not a taxation to support an infamous war nor was it taxation without representation but a simple tax to cover the cost of the states revolutionary War debts and, Kentucky just like other states were assured equality in final settlement.What caused the Whiskey Rebellion to happen?The Whiskey Rebellion also known as Whiskey Insurrection was a tax protest during the presidency of George Washington which began in 1791, in the United States. The tax was imposed on domestic distilled spirits. It was a rum tax in Massachusetts, a brandy tax in some parts of south-eastern seaboard and a whiskey tax in the interior. Although citizens from every region protested but strong measures were taken from the frontier. Pennsylvania observed a covert rebellion while Massachusetts observed an overt rebellion which was agreed to be covered up by the Federalists. Whiskey played an important role in the economy of Kentucky. During that era whiskey was as important to Kentucky as tobacco was to Virginia in seventeenth century and cotton to the South after cotton gin came into being. Whiskey was a substitute to money as banknotes were scarce after Appalachian Mountains. Blue grass and Green river country, the settled part of Kentucky was enormously fertile. Corn and Hem thrived abundantly and horses, cattle and hog were in increasing numbers.But as Spain held the west bank of the Mississippi River and below what is now Vicksburg, the east bank as well, keeping in mind that Spain forbade free navigation of the Mississippi and prohibited Americans from exporting goods at New Orleans unless they paid an unreasonable amount of money, there was absolutely no way they could export their produce and animals to the markets of eastern states or Europe.Transporting grain or hem or animals eastward up the river or over mountains was an economic loss as transportation cost consumed all profit. The only profitable product made in Kentucky that could be sold elsewhere was Whiskey, which had greatest value for the weight and volume. When congress passed internal revenue taxes, Kentuckians protested publically and decided not to pay privately. To them the federal government was taxing their only exportable good with no return. Kentucky claimed to be in need of protection from the Indians and cooperation from Spain but Washington officials were not aiding them with both. Kentuckians accused congress for sacrificing Mississippi for commercial advantages that would only be of benefit to eastern states under the Articles of confederation. In mid 1970s Washington Administration was negotiating with Great Britain but visibly ignored the needs of westerners treaty with Spain. It was then with people of Kentucky decided that they will not support the government as they have not supported them. Marshal the chief revenue officer found it difficult to organize a tax collection and find people willing to serve as tax collectors because people were resigning as fast as being appointed in Kentucky district which finally lead to Whiskey Rebellion.What happened during the Whiskey Rebellion?Once the act was passed by President George Washington, the next big challenge was for the administration is to implement the law. It was a federal law and was supposed to be implemented throughout the country on each and every state. Kentucky out of all states resisted the most which was obvious because whiskey production and selling was their core business. The problem started with an issue of not having proper records of Kentucky whiskey production and selling because they deliberately ignored to keep records of how much they were producing and selling. Of course it added to the problems for the Marshalls as they were supposed to tax according to the quantity and proof produced and without proof it was impossible to measure the amount of tax because they all were in constant operation. The first few years went by without any action taken by the state courts although the court, marshal and the jury knew that the laws were being ignored in Kentucky.The problem got bigger for the state government when the first federal attorney resigned in 1972 and President Washington could find anyone else to fill his place. He offered this job to two famous lawyers but both declined in fact one of the son in law of the current Marshal of that time also declined. One of the correspondent of that time wrote to the marshal The Excise is so very obvious that No lawyer who has a reputation to loose will accept office federal attorney office (Bonsteel Tashau, The whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A forgotten episode of Civil disobedience, 244).These were discouraging circumstances for the Marshall and the revenue office but none of them gave up. The tried to set up an independent jury which advised Marshall to give some time to the Whiskey business owners and suggested that Marshall should forgive those who cannot pay taxes for a year, the distillers demanded for two years of exception but were refused. The federal office used different tactics and options of finding a way to collect taxes from these whiskey producers but all went in vain.The small amount of resistance from the whiskey producers soon turned in to violence. They started threatening the inspectors whoever came for inspection, attacked collectors often when they used to be sleeping and stole their records as well. In fact on one instance tarred a collector and rolled him in leaves. Of course everybody in the revenue office was aware that no tax was being paid, and that even these acts of violence were being ignored by the federal court, in fact every member of the cabinet also knew about that but they never acknowledged it publically (Bonsteel Tashau, The whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A forgotten episode of Civil disobedience, 244).Soon after that situation got more complicated for the federal state that few of the famous local Kentucky leaders were so dissatisfied of the federal government performance that they were about to get separated from the central union and circumstances went out of hand when in the month of July, 1794 Washington sent U.S. marshal to western Pennsylvania to deal with all those liquor sellers who were not abiding the taxation law. More than 500 armed rebelled gathered and attacked the house of General John Neville who was tax inspector of that time. They burned his house and took all the records in fact they robbed the mail person in order to see who is going against the rebels and sending peace messages to Washington. How did the event resolved before the catastrophe occurred?1974 was the time when the rebellion came to its climax and the federal government decided to finally take action against the rebellious farmers of the west. George Washington issued a proclamation to disperse the insurgents and in the meanwhile militia was gathered from numerous colonies. Due to lack of volunteers a draft system was used to increase the army, which led to even more resistance to the government as many of the men drafted did not want to join. Several civilians were accidently killed during resistance during rounding up of recruits, however they did succeed in raising a large militia which was led by Harry Lee then the governor of Virginia, the militia acted as deterrence to the rebels. The earliest conflict between the rebels and army occurred at General and tax inspector John Nevilles fortified house at Bower Hill. Neville fired a shot that wounded a rebel in response to their demands which provoked the insurgents to surround his house and break out fighting. A veteran of the revolutionary war, James McFarlane, commanded the rebels, open fired. The rebels retreated and the fighting stopped after McFarlane was wounded fatally, who later died. Except for accidental casualties, the casualties from this battle were the only casualties that occurred on either side from the entire rebellion.Radicals gathered at Pittsburgh after firing broke out at Bower Hill which was called as March on Pittsburgh. On 1st August 7000 people gathered in Braddocks field of Pittsburgh to protest McFarlanes murder and also continued to voice their demands about tax, while surprisingly most of them did not even own a whiskey still or land. Protests were growing to other parts of the colonies where they already had discontent especially the poor.Most radical insurgents wanted independence from United States. Eventually rebels assembled and had discussion over demands and revolutions. As peace negotiations seemed impossible, the federal government had no other option but to use militia to prevent violence.Washington sent a group of commissioner to negotiate with the insurgents but they doubted the commissioners will succeed in negotiating with the rebels and hence ordered militia to go west and operate against rebels soon after. Shortly after this the resistance collapsed and no further military action was necessary from the federal government. Several revolutionary leaders, David Bradford being one of them, fled to west and avoided capture.Twenty four people were guilty of high treason, of which only two faced trails, two were convicted and even those two were later pardoned by George Washington.Is there any particular person or persons who stood out as heroes in resolving the issue?People of western Pennsylvania choose their own assembly as they felt were under represented by congress. For each county they could have three to five representatives which they chose. These representatives were to bring forward demands of their own county in front of the assembly. Most of the representative had grievances against the government and tried to push citizens of western Pennsylvania towards open insurgency. Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Albert Gallatin would calm down people during meetings and, prevented feelings of extremism and insurgency from dominating. Albert Gallatin represented the Fayette County. He was the secretary and also delivered speeches that aided to bring appease to the radicals present at the meetings. Gallatin would still deliver those speeches even when radicals were in crowd and armed. He stated that open rebellion against the government was a big mistake. Unfortunately the government only participation in those meeting would justify a person to be guilty with no differentiation between moderates and radicals. Washington ordered the military to drive off rebels in western Pennsylvania and they were also given list of names of participants to be arrested, which included the names of Brackenridge and Gallatin, in 1974.Fortunately for Gallatin, he was not present at that time. Albert Gallatin in his reflections later called his participation in Whiskey Rebellion his only political sin. (Bonsteel Tashau, The whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A forgotten episode of Civil disobedience, 249).

Bibliography:

Bonsteel Tachau, Mary K. the whiskey Rebellion in Kentucky: A forgotten episode of Civil disobedience. Journal of the Early Republic. 2 (1982): 239-259.Brackenridge, H.M. the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Pittsburgh: W.S Haven, 1849.Slaughter. Thomas. Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. Oxford University Press, 1986.