The Whiskey Rebellion
On August 1, 1794, President George Washington was once again leading
troops. Only this time Washington was not striking out against the British but
rather against fellow Americans. The occasion for this was the Whiskey Rebellion.
Various efforts had been made to diminish the heated opposition towards the tax
on distilled liquors. However, there was only one man who has derived the best
course of action. That man, President George Washington, deserves all the credit
and recognition for his actions concerning the Whiskey Rebellion.
In September 1791 the western counties of Pennsylvania broke out in
rebellion against a federal “excise” tax on the distillation of liquor. After
local and federal officials were attacked, President Washington and his advisors
decided to send troops to assuage the region. On August 14, 1792, under the
militia law, Henry Knox (secretary of war) had called for 12,950 troops. After
this, many problems arose, both political and logistical. These dilemmas had to
be overcome, and by October, 1794 the men were on the march towards Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania. There, they contained the mob hysteria and anger. This event
represented the first use of the Militia Law of 1792 enabling the militia to “
execute the laws of the union, and suppress insurrection” (The Whiskey Rebellion
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1).
It is clear that George Washington was the source of success in the
Whiskey Rebellion. When the militia, with Washington and Hamilton at its lead,
reached western Pennsylvania, it became clear that there would be no armed
resistance. Evidence of Washington's leadership in this rebellion took place
when the “Representatives of the insurgents asked for clemency, and Washington
granted it with stipulation that they comply with federal laws thereafter” (The
Precipice of Power). This agreement forced the public to abide by the rules of
the government and their taxes without any destructive rebellions. It was
evident that Alexander Hamilton was not the backbone of this success. “His
actions provided undeniable proof to Republicans that Hamilton was a monster who
would stop at nothing to defend his corrupt policies, a budding Caesar bent on
establishing monarchy” (A Biography of Alexander Hamilton). Hamilton did not
care as much about the success of his government but of himself and his beliefs
on the nation. Furthermore, Hamilton was planning on resigning, hence making it
crucial to him to entrench the policies he had put into place. “For the
remainder of his life Hamilton worried that his work would be destroyed, his
The whiskey Rebellion Witten by Thomas P. Slaughter talks bout a rebellion that setup a precedent in American history. It gives us the opportunity to really comprehend this rebellion that thanks to fast action from the Federal government didn’t escalate to a more serious problem like civil war. The book the Whiskey Rebellion frontier of the epilogue to the American Revolution captures the importance and drama of the rebellion. The book is divided into three sections context, chronology and sequence. In the first section Slaughter explain the reason why the taxes was needed in the first place. According to Anthony Brandt in his article of American history name “Rye Whiskey, RYE Whiskey” Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the
Professor Thomas Slaughter has provided a most thorough overview of the Whiskey Rebellion, which he asserts had by the time this book was conceived nearly two centuries after the episode transpired, had become a largely forgotten chapter of our nation's history since the time of the Civil War. He cites as direct evidence of this fact the almost complete absence of any mention of the event in many contemporary textbooks of the conservative era of the 1980's, which this reviewer can attest to as well, having been a high school student in the late 1970's, who never heard of the Whiskey Rebellion until years later. Building off of his own dissertation on the topic, the author convincingly shows that the Whiskey Rebellion was in fact an event of tremendous importance for the future of the fledgling United States of America, which was spawned by the head-long collision of a variety of far-reaching forces and factors in the still quite primitive environs of western Pennsylvania that summer and fall. Slaughter contends that one must place the frontier at the center of the great political debates of the era and fully explore the ideological, social, political, and personal contexts surrounding the episode in order to fully understand the importance of its place in American history. In doing so the author has produced a very readable work that may be enjoyed by casual readers, who will likely find the individual vignettes which open each chapter particularly fascinating, and a highly useful basis of further research by future scholars into the importance of the frontier region as it relates to events on a national scale in those early days of the republic.
Eastby, Allen G. "Battle of Brandywine: Setback for the Continental Army." Military History 12 1998: 58-64. ProQuest. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
1) Shays' Rebellion, the post-Revolutionary clash between New England farmers and merchants that tested the precarious institutions of the new republic, threatened to plunge the "disunited states" into a civil war. The rebellion arose in Massachusetts in 1786, spread to other states, and culminated in an abortive attack on a federal arsenal.
After the preamble the second part of the Constitution is the seven articles which describe the elements of the Constitution. One of the articles gives the legislativ...
In the book Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty by William Hogeland. The author doesn’t just talk about what started the Whiskey Rebellion and what happened during this period. But he wanted to show you the underlining of this Rebellion as it was one of the major parts of the founding period. Also that there are lot of characters that we don’t learn about, he realizes that people don’t really know about the Whiskey Rebellion. That is wasn’t just a couple of “blackened faced, dress wearing” (Hogeland 20) people. He wanted the general people to understand what the Whiskey Rebellion really was the establishment of federal authority.
describing citizenship, its importance in his point of view. So what is considered a strong and
“In the first years of peacetime, following the Revolutionary War, the future of both the agrarian and commercial society appeared threatened by a strangling chain of debt which aggravated the depressed economy of the postwar years”.1 This poor economy affected almost everyone in New England especially the farmers. For years these farmers, or yeomen as they were commonly called, had been used to growing just enough for what they needed and grew little in surplus. As one farmer explained “ My farm provides me and my family with a good living. Nothing we wear, eat, or drink was purchased, because my farm provides it all.”2 The only problem with this way of life is that with no surplus there was no way to make enough money to pay excessive debts. For example, since farmer possessed little money the merchants offered the articles they needed on short-term credit and accepted any surplus farm goods on a seasonal basis for payment. However if the farmer experienced a poor crop, shopkeepers usually extended credit and thereby tied the farmer to their businesses on a yearly basis.3 During a credit crisis, the gradual disintegration of the traditional culture became more apparent. During hard times, merchants in need of ready cash withdrew credit from their yeomen customers and called for the repayment of loans in hard cash. Such demands showed the growing power of the commercial elite.4 As one could imagine this brought much social and economic unrest to the farmers of New England. Many of the farmers in debt were dragged into court and in many cases they were put into debtors prison. Many decided to take action: The farmers waited for the legal due process as long as them could. The Legislature, also know as the General Court, took little action to address the farmers complaints. 5 “So without waiting for General Court to come back into session to work on grievances as requested, the People took matters into their own hands.”6 This is when the idea for the Rebellion is decided upon and the need for a leader was eminent.
During the 1800’s, if the states are sovereign then they have the right to secede from the Union (A...
history with a right to bear arms. Finally one can see the conflict of views
A V Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (10th ed 1964) 40.
The name Civil War is misleading because the war was not a class struggle, but a sectional combat, having its roots in political, economic, social, and psychological elements. It has been characterized, in the words of William H. Seward, as the “irrepressible conflict.” In another judgment the Civil War was viewed as criminally stupid, an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Both views accept the fact that in 1861 there existed a situation that, rightly or wrongly, had come to be regarded as insoluble by peaceful means.
Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the Republic, one that the drafters of two constitutional amendments the Second and the Fourteenth intended to protect, and a right whose critical importance has been painfully revealed by twentieth-century history, is left undefended by the lawyers, writers, and scholars we routinely expect to defend other constitutional rights. Instead, the Second Amendment’s intellectual as well as political defense has been left in the unlikely hands of the National Rifle Association (NRA). And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision.
"Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789." The Avalon Project. Yale Law School, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
idea of a nation being egocentric. In this respect he is also contradictory to More in that More’s