🥃 Whiskey Rebellion

The Whiskey Rebellion was an armed resistance by farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania to the first nationwide internal tax in the United States: an excise on spirits, adopted in 1791. The crisis peaked in the summer of 1794 and ended without a battle, when the federal government sent almost 13,000 militiamen to the west.

The tax. According to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) of the United States, Congress introduced the excise in 1791 on the initiative of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, to pay off the debts of the War of Independence. The rate ranged from 6 to 18 cents per gallon, and small distillers often paid more than twice as much per gallon as large ones. Payment had to be made in cash.

Why people protested. On the frontier, farmers distilled their surplus grain into whiskey, which also served as money, so the tax in effect fell on their main crop. Cases were heard by a federal court in Philadelphia, about 300 miles from Pittsburgh. Four counties of south-western Pennsylvania had up to a quarter of all the stills in the country.

The year 1794. In July armed men attacked and burned the house of tax inspector John Neville. On 7 August George Washington issued a proclamation ordering the rebels to disperse by 1 September. Almost 13,000 militiamen gathered at Carlisle, and the rebels dispersed without a battle. Washington pardoned the two men convicted of treason in 1795, and by 1802 Congress had repealed the excise.

Why it matters to you. The uprising established the right of the federal government to collect taxes across the whole country, and the TTB calls it the first real test of the legitimacy of federal authority. Today's supervision of spirits in the United States traces its history back to the 1791 excise. The WHO reminds us that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.