The Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion (1794) originated in a dispute over the role of taxation in the United States.Many citizens of the new republic assumed that the Revolutionary War meant they would never be made to pay direct taxes to support a distant government. But Washington's secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, wanted to tax Americans to help finance the national debt and to support a relatively large national government. Hamilton's plan to override the parochialism of local authorities and to make the United States stable and prosperous prevailed in Congress, which passed an act (3 March 1791) creating an excise tax on spirits distilled in the United States. Opposition to the act was widespread, but centered in western Pennsylvania, where local politicians denounced the tax and citizens attacked it in public meetings. Opponents tarred and feathered tax collectors and...
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