Popular Politics in Early America – Page 10 – Just another My blog Sites site

October 2, 2013

Not Enough Proof

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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.

September 26, 2013

Slaughter Slaughtering the Whiskey Rebellion?

This week’s reading of Slaughter’s The Whiskey Rebellion– to paraphrase the thoughts of several of my colleagues – was undoubtedly a work marked by thorough research and writing. While I agree with Ian, AJ, and CT in saying that Part II of The Whiskey Rebellion was indeed dense, I think Slaughter did this intentionally to demonstrate the complex narrative that culminated in the Whiskey Rebellion. This way he forces us to realize that the rebellion was not a mere short-lived affair often written off as an honorable mention in a list of the historical turning points of the United States. Rather, he argues that the Whiskey Rebellion was the product of continued and escalated tensions between various groups of people throughout the young nation, and – at least through the first two sections – that it was nothing short of a miracle that the country did not split amidst the conflict. This collectively contributes to his broader argument that the Whiskey Rebellion, particularly because of the conflicts harbored within the affair, should be thought about as a defining moment in the course of American history.

With that being said, I think Slaughter’s attempt to provide such a vivid, detailed account of the events preceding the Whiskey Rebellion ultimately leaves his work vulnerable to several criticisms. His writing, especially so in Part II, seems to become a pattern. As Slaughter begins to place every group, ideology, or concern into a contest with a conflicting group, ideology, or concern, the work quickly became monotonous for me and lost some persuasive value. His constant pitting of East vs. West, rich vs. poor, big business vs. small business, educated vs. uneducated, liberty vs. order, Federalist vs. Antifederalist, etc. dilutes the effectiveness of his argument. While revealing that the origin of the Whiskey Rebellion cannot be neatly pointed to a single cause, Slaughter’s constant pairings lead to a superficial understanding of each of the potential causes he emphasizes.

Moreover, the strategy pursued by Slaughter has made his narrative very dry, thereby losing some his argument’s persuasiveness. There are times when Slaughter hints at aligning with the frontiersmen at the time, as on page 112 when he writes “The excise constituted a unique threat because it embodied in one law so many evils.” However, instead of continuing this narrative and emphasizing the abuses the national government were making upon the West, Slaughter quickly turns away from this argument to present an objective account of what transpired leading up to the Whiskey Rebellion. I believe Slaughter’s book would have become more persuasive had he chose a side in his monograph. Rather, he leaves us with what might amount to an almanac of events and conflicts leading up to the rebellion with commentary, but no adamant opinions or analyses. His constant back and forth with pairings, people, and occasional scholarly interpretation only leads – as many of my colleagues are likely willing to agree – to confusion among his readers.

My last point of contention with Slaughter is that he seems to have a faint idea of the image he wants to portray of Alexander Hamilton. While Hamilton was one of the key figures of the Whiskey Rebellion, Slaughter fails to characterize Hamilton with respect to the context of his book. At times, Hamilton appears to be a man looking out for the best interest of the United States – a mediator of sorts – trying, as seen on page 145 “to avoid conflict between collectors and distillers who honestly misunderstood the law.” However, only pages earlier, Slaughter appears to write about Hamilton as something of an antagonist, a man who “In every respect…defined his views on taxation in opposition to the ideology shared by friends of liberty” (140). This is only exacerbated by the point made by Ian that men like Washington and Hamilton believed 80 percent of frontiersmen were disloyal to the American government. This leads me to question whether Slaughter intends to depict Hamilton as a hero, a villain, or perhaps if Slaughter even thought about how he to represent Hamilton at all. While I do not have the answers to these questions, I do think that in Part II of The Whiskey Rebellion Slaughter took on a project much too vast for the 81 pages he allotted for it.

September 26, 2013

There's More than East and West

I think one of the most interesting things I’ve taken from Slaughter’s book is the way that traditional methods of protest and petition carried over from prerevolutionary times. However, I think one thing we’ve oversimplified is the relative unity of the western United States. For instance, Eli’s post references the whiskey rebellion as more of a grassroots movement than the American Revolution and we’ve focused on the Eastern critiques of the West and adapted them into our interpretation of events. What we have seen in the lead up to the Whiskey rebellion is actually more complicated than this. The desire to appear legitimate in the eyes of the East was certainly a facet of the decision making process in western communities when they voted on republican committees to represent their grievances (111). Moreover, comments of Alexander Hamilton and others who felt as that the discontent in the West stemmed from the efforts of a few rogues leading the flock show the perception of the elites having a leading role in the lead up to the rebellion. Whether this was actually the case is unclear, easterners could have been projecting their experience in the American Revolution onto the West. Alternatively, perhaps it stemmed from the disbelief that a movement could succeed without elitist leadership, which is plausible given Hamilton’s belief that popular opinion had no value (123).

While we may have undervalued the influence of the western elite particularly in the early lead up to the rebellion, I think that the grassroots element of this rebellion differentiates it from others. I think the increasing tendency to use extreme violence as a means to intimidate the opposition marks a new development in the types of protest in America. While the reasons this shift can be debated, the most important thing I draw from this change is the growing conflict between elites and the grassroots movement in the West itself. Each group began to differentiate themselves from each other, creating two separate, simultaneous, and competing movements to alleviate their problems. This new group was more willing to use violence as an initial and unrestrained tool rather than as the last link in the chain of a longer process and becoming more like the violence we associate with mobs in the modern world.

September 25, 2013

The West is Where You Don't Want to Go

The title is not a direct shot at my esteemed colleague’s, AJ Pignone, previous post, but I do disagree with the overall mentality of the post. Ian and AJ both hit the nail on the head by pointing out Slaughter’s incredible detail describing the Whiskey Rebellion. And at times, I’ll admit, I read over three or four pages, went to turn the page yet again, but I had to re-read those previous pages because I realized I had no idea what Slaughter was trying to say. The detail is a plus though. It’s better to have too much detail and force the reader to sift through the intricacies than to leave something out. Furthermore, Slaughter does do a decent job of summing up each of his chapters in the final paragraphs.

To address my explicit disagreement with AJ’s post and to continue the debate from class yesterday, the west is not where I would want to be during this time. Frontiersmen were poor and in a constant state of fear from Indian attacks. Furthermore, settlers were outside of the governmental protective reach. As Slaughter described, the government did send an army. However, due to the extreme distance, the forces were tired, ill-equipped, and unable to perform their duties. Albeit many of the forces were not the caliber of soldier able to truly be of assistance. That failure is attributed to the government, one-hundred percent. The attempt, however inadequate, to aid the frontiersman was there. Interestingly, Slaughter points out that after the slaughter (pun intended) of the American forces where 938 soldiers were killed, Indians were much less fearful of the American armed forces and became more aggressive with their attacks. So, the army’s aid turned out to be harmful instead. To quote a wise man, hindsight is always 20/20.

My favorite tid-bit of information Slaughter enlightens his reader with on pg. 169, “Treasury department reports showed that no revenue was collected in the entire state of Kentucky and that collections on domestic spirits from Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were far below the costs of enforcement.” This fact shows the lack of success of the tax because of the response from frontiersmen. The cost of protecting (or attempting to protect) the frontier constituted over 80% of the nation’s budget. Similar argument poised by the British following the Seven-Years War (once again caused by westward expansion): you started this war, so you help pay for it. The settlers in the west not only refused to pay the tax, but they protested violently against the tax collector, the middleman. Maybe the Whiskey Rebellion coined the term, “don’t shoot the middleman,” because that’s exactly what was happening during this time. The frontier was a violent place, there is no denying that claim. However, this violence overflowed to attacks against our own people, Americans attacking Americans, a truly despicable act. What separates the settlers of this time from those rebels in tumultuous countries in present day who attack their government officials because they feel their government’s treatment is unjustified? Without getting into a political debate, I’m simply trying to draw a comparison of internal strifes and how we as present day Americans view those other riotous countries with unfavorable opinions. I can speculate that those in the East viewed the Westerners with similar contempt during this excise fiasco.

Hamilton was willing to consider reasonable amendments to the law. However, this claim was a catch-22. As evident from the plain disregard for frontier petitions and pleas, eastern politicians, like Hamilton, did not respect frontiersmen opinions. Few easterners disagreed with the excise tax, so those who had a respected opinion, rarely dissented to the tax (frankly because the tax did not severely effect them). Hamilton did, however, recommend a “tax break” for domestic distilleries by increasing the tax on foreign distilleries. Furthermore, Hamilton sought to include this tax break to larger distilleries. Both of these ideas showed Hamilton’s business acumen. Larger distilleries were more efficient, and protecting domestic distilleries kept all American spirits more competitive in American markets, even those distilleries in Western Pennsylvania. I will not make the over sweeping claim that, as Slaughter quotes, Hamilton sought to remove all rural distillers. Hamilton simply knew that larger distillers effected the nation’s economy more than smaller, rural distilleries. To compare to modern times, why did Obama bail out the “big banks” and let them absorb the small town banks? Arguably, because the big banks were more vital to the nation’s economy.

To sum it all up, the frontier was violent and expensive to maintain. I support the idea of manifest destiny (‘Merica!) and westward expansion. However, there will always be a cost to this expansion, and someone has to pay it.

September 25, 2013

The Lens of the American Revolution

I am fascinated by the so-called whiskey rebellion and the tax that it sprung from. For me, the most interesting part of learning about it is considering it within the context of the American Revolution. Slaughter seems entirely correct in his subtitle: “Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution.” The rhetoric regarding the exercise of excise taxes by the federal government, versus the rhetoric used by the founding fathers and later framers of the constitution, is a stark dichotomy. The elite of the period in which the whiskey rebellion took place seemed very willing to discount the ideological arguments of the frontiersmen concerning representation and fair treatment in favor of the practical consideration of money. Cynicism creeps into my perception here, as I wonder whether the ideological arguments made my the signatories to the declaration of independence were actually looking out for their own economic self-interest.

Furthermore, the revolution is apparently relevant in the founders concerns over the possibility that the confederacy and later the United States would crumble from east-west tension. In retrospect, it seems almost inconceivable that the United States would not have grown into the empire it became, but by reading this book I’ve realized that the elite of early America saw the existence of the new nation as highly tenuous, ready to shatter in a moment. “The Whiskey Rebellion” elucidates this fear even further, with the central government’s ability (not to mention right) to collect certain taxes in question.

Unlike Ian, I was not very surprised by the differences of loyalty leading up to the American Revolution versus the whiskey rebellion. To me, the rebellion seems like much more of a grassroots movement, boiling over from popular sentiment and spilling over into violent action, than was the American Revolution, which seems to me to have been a somewhat popular, but predominantly elite action taken to secure the rights and property of the owning class within colonial America from the elites of the British Empire. Additionally, from what I have learned recently, it seems like frontier settlers felt more aggrieved by the actions (or in-actions of the federal and state governments) than did colonists leading up to the American Revolution. Partially, I believe this to be the result of frontiersman believing that the new government would be more representative and receptive to their needs than the British government. Partially, however, I think that the frontiersmen felt cornered–stuck between the demand for taxes from the east, the threat of Indians to the west, and the difficulty of developing economically because of their lack of access to the Mississippi River, the last issue of which being particularly upsetting to many, because they felt that it was congress’ intention to limit their economic growth by not negotiating with Spain on that issue.

September 24, 2013

The West Is Where You Want To Go

First, I want to comment on Thomas P. Slaughter’s work, The Whiskey Rebellion, and pick up on what Ian stated in his post this evening. I agree with Ian and do tend to find, at least part two, to be very dense and hard to follow at times. Slaughter has done an incredible job and has packed tons and tons of historical research and insight into these pages, however, with that being said Ian makes a valid point that the onslaught of information makes it hard for the reader to follow what is going on. The information is very interesting yet difficult to consistently tie back to the overall picture of his message, so with regards to that claim, I do agree with Ian. What I want to add to that is the awesome picture that Slaughter paints by overloading us with information. I had yet to read something so extensive regarding the Frontier and the lead up to the Whiskey Rebellion. Even though it is so dense, Slaughter does give us amazing snap shots of Frontier life pre-Whiskey Rebellion. I always thought that the revolution and freedom was fought and won in the East but Slaughter’s work leads me to second guess myself and rethink my stance. His information on the expansion of the West and those who were fighting for its freedom illustrates just the true Americanism and heroism of those sticking it out on the West.

What really caught my eye was the quote Slaughter puts on the first page of part two to begin the section, by Robert Penn Warren it reads,

For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that that’s gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.

From Warren’s work, All the King’s Men, this quote just caught my interest and intrigue because it views the West as almost the promise land; where everyone wants to go. This quote, along with the section of the book itself and the heated debate we had in class today is why I want to spend my last remarks asking why the newly created national government, headed by Hamilton’s policy, wanted to levy a tax primarily focused on frontiersmen? I understand the issue with the national debt and the need to promote American prosperity; however, I do not understand why it needed to be at the expense of the frontiersmen. The Whiskey excise needed to help pay back the debt was immediately controversial amongst many on the Western front. An excise clearly seen as a target on westerners, whiskey was often a popular medium of exchange and essentially the excise became an income tax that elites in the East didn’t have to pay. I don’t understand why after we just left Great Britain that we would do the same thing to our on people that forced us to revolt. The main complaint to the tax was that it was taxation without representation, exactly what they’d just fought the Revolutionary War to stop. Many of these westerners were veterans and in their view they were fighting for freedom, resisting the newly emerging central state. Along with larger distillers recognizing the advantage the excise and Hamilton gave them, westerners continually felt the government was ignoring their security and economic welfare. Adding the whiskey excise to other existing grievances only increased tensions on the frontier. To conclude, I wonder why our government would willingly take more and more from those who have less and less yet fight for our freedom on our fronts.

September 24, 2013

A Reflection of the American Revolution

From our second section of reading on Thomas P. Slaughter’s The Whiskey Rebellion, a certain by the frontiersmen caught my attention. This quote is; “the government was competent to every end but that single one by which alone it can benefit us, the protection of our territorial rights” (163). This seemed like a very strong assertion by frontiersmen towards the United States government but, was not something new to the American people. Only a few decades earlier, a great number of colonists were making similar statements regarding the oppressive rule by the British government. I noticed one striking difference between the two revolutionary statements, that in support of the government.

Throughout most of the lead up to the American Revolution, the colonists remained loyal to the King of England. For Ben Franklin, it took his utter embarrassment at the hands of the British nobility in 1774 to sway his allegiance, but until that point he was a loyal subject. Quite differently, Slaughter points out how he believes that both George Washington and Alexander Hamilton probably believed about 80 percent of frontiersmen disloyal to the American Government (156). This is a shocking difference in support for the government but, it goes to show the type of spirit that was in the air. The frontiersmen had learned from past events that mere petitions and acts of civil disobedience were not enough to implement change. Instead, one must revolt against the country that had abused their allegiance, partaking in violence to secure their liberties. Except, the only problem with this mindset lay in the fact that the country these frontiersmen wished to split from was not an ocean away but, was right next store, ready to maintain an intact nation.

Though I do enjoy Slaughter’s book a lot, after reading the second section I have noticed a continual problem in the piece. As a side- effect of Slaughter’s exuberant amount of research, his work becomes too dense. I have found myself countless times trying to remember who was who in terms of people, or where this event fit into the overall picture. It became quite a taxing practice for the first two sections and I can only imagine it will continue. As a result of this issue, one gets lost in trying to identify the significant number of characters and events, rather than understanding the ideas that are being argued for in the piece. Though great detail is generally a good thing to have in a piece like this, the use of it in the way Slaughter has actually takes away from understanding his specific arguments.

Rather than responding to a fellow classmates post today, I would actually like to respond to our heated debate that took place in class. A specific point I would like to answer would be Mr. Christopher Talevi’s regarding his statement about frontiersmen invading Native American land. I do see his point regarding how it was wrong for frontiersmen to continue pushing westward but, the issue was not the morality of the issue at the time but, how to deal with it. These frontiersmen were a part of the United States regardless of their actions, which meant it was the country’s duty to protect them. Instead of adequately protecting them from hostile natives, as many were, the government proposed an excise tax that would only weaken the already struggling western folk. This action only goes to support the frontiersman’s quote above regarding the failures of the national government in their protection. It was no longer a matter of right and wrong in terms of invasion but, how was the newly constructed government going to defend its people from a threat.