October 2013 – Page 5 – Popular Politics in Early America

October 2, 2013

It Was Bound to Happen

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AJ’s claim that the Whiskey Rebellion could have been avoided if personal grudges had been put aside, is a nice thought (it also provides a great image of a 1980s television freeze frame where Washington and Hamilton jump in the air and high five a group of westerners to show their differences are settled as the credits roll) but in no way was going to happen. Rebellions were occurring across the globe at this point in history and the number of similarities between the Whiskey Rebellion and these foreign revolutions are numerous as pointed out by Linebaugh and Rediker’s work The Many-Headed Hydra. Using only a sampling of rebellions occurring across the globe one can see similarities when they compare them to the Whiskey Rebellion situation. Boiling these numerous revolts down to the simplest of terminology I feel that these revolts are “the poor against the wealthy in attempt to even the playing field.” Now poor and wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean money, as many of these poor were simply trying to gain influence, but often times the individuals revolting were in worse financial shape. Looking at the Whiskey Rebellion, anger over taxes that were to be imposed on those out west was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Prior to this tax those out west felt that the government truly did not care for their well being, was the government providing westerns guns to fight off the Native Americans? No. Was the government putting any effort into staring western settlements? No, the government was relying on those out west to settle the land, so that easterners later could step in and live similarly to how they did originally. Westerns were upset with their situation and finally hit a boiling point, much like others across the globe were.

Going back to AJ’s point could Hamilton and Washington have put aside their issues with the west and maybe given them what they desired, a voice? Yes. But why would they? These men just outlasted the largest empire in the world and prior to outlasting them were able to pick up some notable military victories. What were a few thousand farmers to an entire army? It is not the nicest view of Washington and Hamilton, who are undoubtedly among the legends of revolution time America, but it is a realistic view. Furthermore, who is to say that if Washington and Hamilton were to give into the desires of the west that the west wouldn’t want more. I think the idea of give them an inch they take a mile truly was at play here as those out west were trying to see where their voice stood amongst those out east. Sadly for them they found out they simply didn’t have a voice.

Ultimately this revolt was bound to happen due to simply a difference of views and opinions of how each participant of the Whiskey Rebellion saw themselves. Would the way that the rebellion have played out been any different if those out west made in an issue of being an American? Slaughter points out that many westerners were people of multiple races and didn’t fall under the traditional scope of “an American” at this time. Answering that question I’d say probably not. The only difference I can see in that scenario in the way that the rebellion would have played out were the possible repercussions of foreigners or free blacks living in the colonies.

October 2, 2013

Not Enough Proof

The first thing that caught my attention in Linebaugh and Rediker’s work was the decision to explore on two of the groups of slaves and wage laborers. There topic provides an interesting opportunity to reframe many of the topics we’ve discussed which have primarily omitted any mention of interracial collaboration towards political objectives (we’ve talked about slaves accepting offers to fight for their freedom, but I would argue that to be a personal objective).

The idea of interracial collaboration in riots certainly hints at the potential of larger proletariat identity existing prior to the 1800s but there were things that bothered me in their work. For instance, the use of Sam Adam’s assertion that the mob ‘embodied the fundamental rights of man against which government itself could be judged’ suggests that the legitimate use of mobs and the threat of mob violence was a new phenomenon in early American society (231). While Adam may have been the first to ideologically defend the notion, we’ve already seen that mob violence was a tool employed by communities long before the lead up to the American revolution. Moreover, the inclusion of the Irish Whiteboys as part of 1768 London riot also seemed somewhat out of place. While it does introduce the important notion of striking as a form of political protest and the bridging of ethnic divisions, the desire to place the Irish at the forefront seemed strained and moved away from the theme of interracial rioting. While the authors used four separate instances to try to prove their point, I feel that the width of the study took away from the details needed to prove their assertion. While they offer the idea of general economic oppression being the cause of many of the riots, the sources they use to talk about the events often come from the “bourgeois” side of the event as they describe the complexion of the rioters in a manner that would seek to reflect their desires. Sources from the rioters would either offer specific reasons that these individuals chose to rebel with one another and show an awareness of a larger proletariat identity or the lack thereof.

Moving on to somewhat unrelated things, I’d like to tackle something AJ mentioned in his post which was “Really, after all that led up to the rebellion, only a few frontiersmen went to jail.” This reminded me of something I thought of in class. In my opinion Slaughter provided his readers, mainly historians, with these excessive details in an effort to convince us that the Whiskey rebellion was part of this frontier conflict and the East vs. West divide that was an extremely important in American history. After reading a book as dense as Slaughter’s, I’d certainly like to believe this is the case but the fact that only a few men went to jail and nothing really happened in its aftermath makes me wonder if this conflict is as central as Slaughter attempts to make it. Just something to ponder.

October 2, 2013

The Whiskey Rebellion as a Head of the Hydra

After reading Part III of Slaughter’s The Whiskey Rebellion, despite his eloquent narration of arguably every event leading up to and culminating in the Whiskey Rebellion, I was left largely unsatisfied by the conclusions he made, or for that matter failed to make, with regards to the event he considers an overlooked turning point of American culture. While successfully revealing the complexity of the rebellion through his analysis of the conflict through the eyes of both the frontiersmen of the West and policymakers of the East, Slaughter ends his book weakly. As discussed in class, he ultimately rests the book on a hesitant claim that the “liberty-order paradigm” is the most effective method of summarizing the Whiskey Rebellion. In addition, on pages 182-183 Slaughter writes off a list of how events that led up to the Whiskey Rebellion could have transpired differently and potentially eliminated conflict. However, amidst his string of “what if” musings, Slaughters misses an opportunity to answers questions about why the “string of tragic ironies and coincidences” did occur (183). For example, what might have been the motivations behind summoning the indicted distillers to Philadelphia? Or, why did the Mingo Creek militia feel the need to capture the federal marshal summoning the distillers to court? Slaughter, in his attempt to forge an extraordinarily thorough commentary on the Whiskey Rebellion, misses the mark in several facets and leaves many interesting historical questions unanswered.

Fortunately, after reading Linebaugh and Rediker’s article “The Many Headed Hydra,” I found a handful of broader questions about the motivations and implications of eighteenth century uprisings, like the Whiskey Rebellion, have been answered. In a convincing piece, Linebaugh and Rediker demonstrate that revolutionary motivation and discourse had been fostered since the 1740s with the Knowles Riot (225). More importantly for discussing the Whiskey Rebellion, however, is their Linebaugh and Rediker’s assertion of a “many-sided struggle against confinement” as an organizing theme in popular revolt of the eighteenth century (244). This argument is further supported in The Whiskey Rebellion through the paradigms that Slaughter generously provides in his book. In illustrating the Whiskey Rebellion as a conflict of East versus West, upper class versus lower class, Federalist versus Antifederalist, and the like we see that the rebellion was in many ways a struggle from many sides. Moreover, it is well documented throughout Slaughter’s book that the frontiersmen felt their rights were being encroached upon with the excise tax on whiskey, fostering a feeling of confinement. Linebaugh and Rediker’s conclusions are further reinforced when taking into account the ethnic tensions of the Whiskey Rebellion as frontiersmen often constituted diverse groups of both white Americans and immigrants, emphasizing the multi-ethnic movements that pervaded rebellion in the eighteenth century (225).

With this in mind, I would challenge AJ’s claim that Washington and Hamilton could have averted crisis had they set aside their personal grudges with the West. Could doing this have settled some tensions? Undoubtedly it could have. On the other hand, as portrayed in Linebaugh and Rediker, revolts like the Whiskey Rebellion were many-sided affairs. Slaughter’s book supports this as his reluctance to definitively choose a “best” framework in which to view the Whiskey Rebellion emphasizes the complexity of the layered tensions in the affair. While a struggle of liberty versus order may have ceased with the retreat of Washington or Hamilton, frontiersmen would still have held their grievances, and several other paradigms of conflict would have remained unresolved. While the obstinacy of Washington and Hamilton definitely facilitated the materialization of the Whiskey Rebellion, the struggle to mend relations with the central government had endured for so long that the confinement felt by the frontiersmen would likely have come to its tipping point regardless of the actions taken by the President and his Secretary of the Treasury.

October 2, 2013

Washington's Attacks on the Liberties of the People

Thomas P. Slaughter’s “The Whiskey Rebellion” presents the Whiskey Rebellion as the idea of liberty v. order. In support this idea, Slaughter presents a particular series of quotes by President Washington on the rebellious frontiersmen. In summary, Washington states that the democratic factions of the Whiskey Rebellion were out to destroy the order of the government, but luckily, the army of the constitution was there to stifle their attempts (221). Washington’s comments against these factions not only disagree with their course of action but, also somewhat attack the liberty of the people.

As is described in The Federalist #10, factions are nothing more than a person’s expression of their liberty. They come about as a result of the vast number of opinions that various men have throughout a republic. Generally, they a good thing, as they represent the ideas of different groups of people, which all come together to vote on the country’s directive. In terms of their negative effect on liberty, it only occurs when the faction becomes so large that it becomes the majority and infringes on the rights of groups of people. This was not the case for the Whiskey Rebellion though, as the rebellious individuals only sought to maintain the liberties they saw as endangered, not interfere with other peoples’ rights.

Yet, Washington seems to have viewed the factions under the Whiskey Rebellion as a true threat to the order of America. He, as well as his class (elites) seemed to have felt threatened by the frontier rebels. Though the frontiersmen were only expressing their rights as history had shown them to do, Washington and the elites did not enjoy their authority being threatened. In portraying Washington’s statements as he did, Slaughter seemingly frames the American government as an Oligarchy, where the few rule the many, suppressing their voice. It also shows Washington as an enemy against liberty, which most would not believe to be the case but, his statements about factions indicate otherwise. Regardless of if Washington was or was not a proponent for liberty in his own right, he is cast as a defender of order, similar to the role of his former enemy, the British, a few years prior.

After reading Aj’s post, I would have to agree with him that part of this conflict developed out of Hamilton’s own personal vendetta against the frontiersmen. It seemed as though he kept pushing and pushing, rather than actually allowing the republican system to take affect and let the complaints of the people be heard. Furthermore than this though, it was also Washington’s disdain for Frontiersmen that also pushed this rebellion to the brink. Slaughter had previously described Washington as a man who had many ill feelings towards frontiersmen after spending some of his younger years amongst them. From how Slaughter portrays certain actions by Washington, like sending somewhat fake peace delegates to Pittsburgh while also constructing his army, it appears that Washington had his own agenda at heart, rather than the country’s. Like Hamilton, if Washington had put aside his own conflict with Westerners, this conflict could have been abated sooner without as much effort as had to take place. Though only a few men were killed, this event marks the efforts of elites attempting to act on their own ambitions over what could have been best for the people as a whole.

October 1, 2013

Honestly, come on Hamilton

As class evolved today, the questions began to center around the validity of Thomas Slaughter’s work and a more slightly hidden question of what role should the Government had played back in its beginning stages; a question that everyone in the country at that time was asking, especially Alexander Hamilton and George Washington alike. Slaughter’s, Whiskey Rebellion, makes it very apparent that this question was very much on the minds of our Founding Fathers as the country first hit adversity and details how many of them decided to deal with it.

As discussed at length today in class after Ian’s initial comment, we all agreed that Slaughter did use this work to explore his personal observations, but rather meticulously fills the pages with historical facts supported with numerous primary or secondary sources. Agreeing with Ian, this often makes the read pretty boring and unclear at times, however, inevitably leaves you possibly questioning the ideas of the Founding Fathers and their decisions at the time.

The extremely comprehensive book thoroughly covers the “famous Non-Rebellion” that took place in outskirts of Western Pennsylvania in 1794, its resulting in President George Washington actually taking the field of battle for the first and last time under the new Federal forces, and everything that lead up to its initial tensions; properly giving attention to the reasons for rebellion, Alexander Hamilton’s master plan to retire the national debt, and the drama surrounding the “east v. west” dilemma. More importantly, Slaughter takes the energy to explain to his audience all of the groundwork of this national argument; the same groundwork that drove our discussion in class today regarding the more detailed reasons and explanations as to why some citizens believed the tax to be fairly acceptable and necessary and why others thought it was abusive and targeting.

Clearly, this book isn’t meant for the average history goer, the details provided by Slaughter are meant for historical scholarship. As we unpacked in class, Slaughter illustrates why this whiskey tax issue actually began to be interpreted many different ways; from a “Class Warfare” Marxist argument which divided the country along geographic and political lines to East v. West to finally liberty v. order and many more along the way. Deeply delving into his explanations and clarifying, for example that the wealthy, elite land owners on the urban, east coast appeared not to have a problem with the Tax or Hamilton’s idea of taxing this commodity in order to solve national debt. Then goes on to explain, on the other hand, that the poor, frontier farmers in the West found the Tax overbearing and targeting because it demanded them to solve an issue they felt had nothing to do with them, essentially became a luxury tax on spirits on the frontier and once again exemplified the issues of the national government not protecting the frontier’s best interests and safety.

In the end, after countless recollections of poor frontier experiences and urban elite sentiment, Slaughter in my opinion, as I stated in class, provides me with enough solid evidence to prove that superstar Hamilton could have avoided this encounter if he had been just a bit more diplomatic and sensible about the current situation of the country and surrounding post-revolutionary spirit. If he could have put aside his personal grudge with the Western settlers, Hamilton and inevitably Washington would have avoided this potential crisis. Really, after all that led up to the rebellion, only a few frontiersmen went to jail, essentially all to establish the right of the new Federal Government to levy taxes on its own people (an example of the many parallels Slaughter makes to British authority years earlier). At the end, Slaughter wraps up by telling us this was a battle between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, liberty and order, elite and poor and the Federalists won out.