By the end of 1791, the farmers of the frontier and the Washington administration were at each other\u2019s throats. Earlier that year, Congress had passed an excise tax on domestically produced spirits, known colloquially as the Whiskey Tax. The tax was especially hard on western frontiersmen, who often ran stills with the grain they cultivated. This tax lay on top of an already contentious relationship between western counties and the federal government, mostly concerning the government\u2019s failure to sufficiently protect frontier towns from Indian assaults. From the government\u2019s perspective, however, the western counties sucked up undue resources without contributing back to the country. The attempted enforcement of the excise was met by firm violent and nonviolent opposition, with grandiose rhetoric on both sides: the western farmers proclaiming their defiance in the name of Revolutionary values, and the supporters of the government insisting their supremacy in the name of law and order. By emphasizing this political context and rhetoric concerning the Whiskey Tax\u2019s enforcement, Thomas Slaughter reveals how the Whiskey Rebellion provided a significant impetus for the division of American politics into a multi-party system.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvanians\u2019 response to the excise echoed that of colonial Boston. One group of objectors, with an interest in law and civility, organized an official assembly to petition against the tax at Redstone and Pittsburgh. Another group saw little need for niceties and decided to treat tax collectors like British tea agents. In many parts of the country, such as Kentucky and the Carolinas, tax collectors did not even attempt to enforce the excise, much to the chagrin of Washington and Hamilton. While swift reprisals against the tax scared off collectors for much of 1791 and 1792, the federal government was not ready to simply keel over. Hamilton saw the insurgency as not only an embarrassment, but a threat to the American ideals of federalism under a strong, capable federal government. The \u201cspirit of disobedience\u201d as portrayed by the Pennsylvanians would diminish national order and cause \u201cthe authority of the government to be prostrate\u201d (121). However, in the opinion the frontiersmen, fighting the enforcement of a perceivably unjust tax was as American as apple pie. Neither side saw any reason, ideological or pragmatic, to step down. Max\u2019s earlier analysis of the North Carolina Stamp Act riots can certainly be applied to the escalation of the excise conflict in 1791: \u201cEach side raises the stakes further until the other one folds or a victor eventually emerges\u201d. In this case, after three years of defiance, Washington was forced to utilize the threat of open military conflict, the highest stakes at his disposal. The rebels quickly, and wisely, folded.<\/p>\n
Slaughter\u2019s most effective chapter in Part II, Liberty, Order, and the Excise<\/i>, emphasizes how the Whiskey Rebellion was a critical, if not defining, moment in the identity of the American political process. The argument of Hobbes versus Locke, Whig versus Tory, or order versus liberty, was hardly new; they just fought a war over it. The western frontiersmen viewed the question as definitively settled by the Revolution, while the Hamiltonians viewed governmental order as the prerequisite to freedom. The heroes of the Constitution, such as Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and Jefferson, had little common ground remaining. The opposing poles on the political spectrum of the early 1800s were developing at this time, and the conversion of these men from allies to rivals was only precipitated by the excise conflict. As Slaughter put it, \u201cthe excise produced a simultaneous challenge to (republican) ideology and (national) interest and thus created a truly volatile situation\u201d (142). In other words, the Whiskey Rebellion was the very first grand, divisive partisan debate. The zero-party state\u2019s veil of harmony could not endure any longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the end of 1791, the farmers of the frontier and the Washington administration were at each other\u2019s throats. Earlier that year, Congress had passed an excise tax on domestically produced spirits, known colloquially as the Whiskey Tax. The tax was especially hard on western frontiersmen, who often ran stills with the grain they cultivated. … <\/p>\n