The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland

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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.
The book starts out with a chapter called “Over the Mountains”, which in my opinion for this chapter the author wanted the reader to understand what it was like to live on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. This is where he brings out one of the main characters in this book, which is Henry Brackenridge. Mr. Brackenridge is a cultivated man in Pittsburgh. He was wealthy and he was there to ratify the Constitution. He was a Realist. He was a college friend of James Madison at College of New Jersey. He was also in George Washington’s post as a chaplain for the Revolutionary War. He believed that Indians needed to be assimilated into the American culture. “… ever to be converted into civilized ways, their legal rights were to be protected” (Hogeland 19). He will become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.
September 1791, Robert Johnson was one of the many attacked for being a tax collectors, which are collecting the tax on distilled liquor. This tax is the first federal tax on American products. Gi...

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...e with him. But Husband on June 9th he died of Pneumonia. Emmy and John buried him somewhere near them but to this very day nobody know where that is exactly.
William Hogeland did a great job at finding hidden stories that the majority didn’t know about. I wish it was a easier read but the information was told correctly. He indeed completed his point of the book because sometimes the past is lost to us future readers and we need to know all the events our founding Americans did to give us the country we have today. Also the book show the reader where exactly the federal government started taking control and how the people tried to fight for what they thought was an unjust law.

Works Cited

Hogeland, William. The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the frontiers rebels who changed America's Newfound Sovereignty. New York: Scribner, 2006.

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