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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.