Taxes – Popular Politics in Early America

October 1, 2013

Honestly, come on Hamilton

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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 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 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.