The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794

President George Washington delivered his sixth annual message to the U.S. Senate and House of Representative on November 19, 1794. In his opening paragraph he proclaimed that “with the deepest regret do I announce to you that during your recess, some of the Citizens of the United States, have been found capable of an insurrection. It is due, however, to the character of our Government, and to its stability, which cannot be shaken by the enemies of order, freely to unfold the course of this event.” Washington was referring to what is today called the Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising of some 7,000 farmers and distillers that had taken place in Western Pennsylvania earlier that summer and fall. The protesters’ anger was over a tax on distilled spirits put in place a few years previously. Washington himself explained in his message to the legislators that “During the Session of the year 1790—it was expedient to exercise the legislative power, granted by the Constitution of the United States, “to lay and collect excises.” In a majority of the States scarcely an objection was heard to this mode of taxation. In some indeed, alarms were at first conceived; until they were banished by reason and patriotism. In the four western Counties of Pennsylvania a prejudice, fostered and embittered by the artifice of men who laboured for an ascendancy over the will of others by the guidance of their passions, produced symptoms of riot and violence.”

 

The roots of the crisis dated back to January 1790, when in his "Report Relative to a Provision for the Support of Public Credit" Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed an excise tax on, among other things, distilled spirits. Hamilton’s recommendation became a reality the following year with the passage on March 3, 1791 of “An Act repealing, after the last day of June next, the duties heretofore laid upon Distilled Spirits imported from abroad, and laying others in their stead; and also upon Spirits distilled within the United States, and for appropriating the same.” Its long-winded title may sound dry, but the whiskey tax the bill created outraged citizens of not just Western Pennsylvania but Virginia, parts of New York, regions of what would become the state of Kentucky, and essentially any other community where residents manufactured distilled beverages. The act would later be amended slightly but amounted usually to a tax ranging from six (6) to eighteen (18) cents per gallon—with revenues to paid in cash, a great burden in rural regions where hard currency was usually in short supply. Taxes were collected at the point of manufacture by local inspectors. The way the system was structured small manufacturers paid rates high than those of larger distillers, a fact not lost on yeoman workers.

 

                                          Federal distillery tax book for Tennessee, 1796-1801

Public outcry increased exponentially in the months and years after passage of the excise law. Several dynamics created such passion. Distilled spirits in the New World had its roots in the British Isles, from where the Scots-Irish in America drew their cultural heritage. Moreover, in a budding nation with so little infrastructure taverns were more than mere drinking establishments; people congregated in them to gossip, talk business, gather news, sometimes pick up their mail, or even spend the night if they were traveling. Financially, as mentioned, the tax was a particularly heavy burden for rural distillers working on narrower economies of scale compared to their larger competitors in cities back East. The taxes having to be paid in cash was an extraordinary burden in what was essentially a frontier barter economy. What is more, any legal proceedings were to be held in Philadelphia, some three hundred miles away from the four most rebellious Pennsylvania counties west of the Alleghenies. That region’s remoteness was itself one reason for the distillation of wheat into whiskey. The liquid beverage was simply easier to transport across long distances—and thus more cost-efficient—than the grain itself. Legal proceedings being held so far from home had a strong whiff of the British courts that colonists complained about in the Declaration of Independence. One line in the Declaration had admonished the British Crown “For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” Distillers also viewed the tax in the context of the levies put in place by King George III in the 1760s and early 1770s prior to the Revolution, in some communities even running up liberty poles in protest against the whiskey tax in reference to those protests against the British years previously. Politically, the whiskey tax was becoming entangled in the growing disputes between Federalists like Hamilton and emerging Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson.

 

President Washington initially tried the soft approach. On September 15, 1792 he issued a proclamation reading in part that “Whereas certain violent and unwarrantable proceedings have lately taken place, tending to obstruct the operation of the laws of the United States for raising a revenue upon Spirits distilled within the same, enacted pursuant to express authority delegated in the Constitution of the United States . . . Now therefore I George Washington, President of the United States . . . most earnestly admonish and exhort all persons whom it may concern, to refrain and desist from all unlawful combinations and proceedings whatsoever.” The unrest however continued, including with the tarring-and-feathering and other acts of violence and intimidation against excise tax collectors.

                                              Tarring-and-feathering of an excise officer

The crisis reached a turning point with an attack on the person and property of one John Neville, the wealthy and deeply unpopular collector in Western Pennsylvania. On July 16, 1794 Neville successfully beat back the mob with the assistance of the enslaved community on his estate. The following day a mob of between 500-600 returned once again and burned down Neville’s home, Bower Hill. Washington and his Cabinet were divided and on August 2 the chief executive held a conference in Philadelphia, the nation’s capital, to gather advice from both federal and state officials. On August 7 the president issued another proclamation “command[ing] all persons, being insurgents as aforesaid and all others whom it may concern on or before the first day of September next to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes.” The president and his advisors continuing monitoring events closely. When September 1, 1794 came and went with little result Washington knew he finally had to do something. He released yet another proclamation, on September 25, 1794, announcing that “the moment is now come” to take military action. President George Washington then personally led nearly 13,000 men into Western Pennsylvania to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. It was the first and only time a serving president personally commanded troops in the field.

 

Militarily the excursion into Western Pennsylvania in fall 1794 was anti-climactic. Indeed it was over almost as soon as it began, with rebels in community after community evaporating prior to the arrival of President Washington and his militia. It was so uneventful that the commander-in-chief eventually returned to Philadelphia and left others in charge. Still, when President Washington delivered his message to Congress on November 19 the matter was not entirely over. There was the issue of what to do with the 150 or so individuals arrested. Most were let go without trial, and about a dozen eventually tried for treason. Of those, two were convicted. Washington pardoned most of the Whiskey Rebellion insurrectionists, including the two convicted individuals, in 1795, the first presidential pardons in American history. The whiskey tax itself remained in place until 1802 when Congress with President Thomas Jefferson’s encouragement repealed the unpopular measure.

 

Images:

An 1863 interpretation of the tarring-and-feathering of a 1790s whiskey excise tax collector; via New York Public Library Digital Collections

 

This page from a federal distillery tax book covering the years 1796-1801 in Tennessee is a reminder that the whiskey tax was in effect even after the 1794 rebellion; courtesy Tennessee Virtual Archive.

 

Keith J. Muchowski volunteers at Morristown National Historical Park. Follow him at https://revolutionarywarmemory.substack.com/.