The Pennsylvanians who led the Whiskey Rebellion were disproportionately affected by the 1791 excise tax on domestic liquor because the majority of western farmers were small-scale distillers, who also had the expensive disadvantage of having to transport their product over the Allegheny mountains in order to reach most urban centers.1 Especially in terms of transport costs, whiskey was a much more efficient product than unprocessed rye, and was also used as currency in areas where hard cash was scarce. As such, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s plan to tax liquor as an unnecessary luxury undermined the basis of the rural economy.
Citizens all over the newly-formed United States were negatively affected by the tax, but the farmers of Washington, Westmoreland, Fayette, and Allegheny counties of Pennsylvania as well as Ohio and Monongalia counties in Virginia were historically known for their distrust of central government and therefore primed for rebellion. John Penn remarked in 1760 that southwest Pennsylvanians were a “lawless, ungovernable crew,” very different from the educated cosmopolitans of Philadelphia.2 The western counties had only been securely settled after the Revolutionary War, in many cases by the very men who now suffered under the excise law.3 As such, the farmers took it as a personal responsibility to stand up for their interests, especially in the face of what they saw as the tyranny of the federal government in Philadelphia. The 1791 Excise Act felt very similar to the hated British Stamp Act, and this group of men–who had almost all fought for independence–would not stand for a rebirth of tyranny in America.4
Anti-Federalist Americans such as the whiskey rebels believed that their role in the new nation was to ensure the government heeded their suggestions and cared for their interests. The townships of Westpensbro and Newton in Pennsylvania wrote that “All Civil authority originates with and is received from the people in a Republican government, that Every law made by the Representatives not agreeable to the Voice of those from whom they Derive their Authority is Tyanical [sic] and unjust.”5 These resolutions are characteristic of those drafted by informal town and county assemblies–sometimes formalized as Democratic Societies–throughout western Pennsylvania, where farmers could air their grievances and debate the best path towards a repeal of the tax.6 Before resorting to violence, the rebels had appealed to their representatives in Philadelphia, but nothing changed. This intransigence was incompatible with the westerners’ understanding of how a democratic government ought to function.7
The resistance to the excise act began at the local level, but was mostly restricted to peaceful debate as the federal government did little to enforce the new tax. Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Mifflin openly refused to help the tax collectors, in essence condoning tax evasion in the southwestern counties.8 Meanwhile, farmers signed covenants vowing not to pay the tax and to punish anyone who did, and the few distillers who did comply were often met with vandalism and scorn.9
Spirited debate turned to violence in July 1794 after an amendment made it so that violators of the excise tax would be tried at state courts instead of in their own towns. Local Supervisor of Collection John Neville accompanied US Marshal David Lennox on July 15 to deliver the court summons of farmer and distiller William Miller of Allegheny County, who was to be tried in distant Philadelphia.10 The men were followed by a group of farmers led by militia leader David Phillips; the crowd “whooped and hallooed” but did not attack the officials.11 The next day, approximately forty men came to Neville’s house demanding his resignation and all tax records for the county.12 Neville refused, but the group returned on the 17th having grown to six hundred men. Neville went into hiding while ten soldiers whom he had hired from nearby Fort Fayette protected his property. The rebels allowed the Neville family to be taken to safety and then opened fire. James McFarlane, Revolutionary War veteran and leader of the rebel group, was killed and five others injured. The epitaph on McFarlane’s headstone reads “He served throughout the war with undaunted courage in the defense of American Independence against the lawless and despotic encroachments of Great Britain. He fell at last by the hands of an unprincipled villain in support of what he supposed to be the rights of his country.”13 After McFarlane’s death the militiamen began burning various buildings, eventually destroying most of Neville’s estate.
On August 1, 1794, about two weeks after the incident at Neville’s estate, a militia of between five and seven thousand men marched peacefully on Pittsburgh after a planned rally on Braddock’s Field, just a few miles east of the city on the Monongahela River. It was this event which prompted Washington’s cabinet to seriously consider organizing a national military response to the insurrection in Pennsylvania.14 Washington had been wary of such a show of force, as he felt it would reinforce Anti-Federalist fears of government overreach–Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Mifflin agreed, writing to the President on August 5, 1794 that he “feared that a military force brought into the region would also alienate the peaceable citizens of the region and cause more discontent there.”15 The incident at Pittsburgh was the largest and most organized group of Whiskey rebels to date, however, and as Federalist judge John Wilkins remarked “The people engaged in the present opposition to government were not an inconsiderable mob. Rather, they are a respectable and powerful combination…of some of the most respectable people in the country.”16 This impressive and professional demonstration, as well as Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice James Wilson’s decision to declare an official state of rebellion on August 4th, pushed the administration to take military action in Western Pennsylvania.
In order to implement the federal decision to rally a militia, the state governments all had to agree. Seeing the potential for violence in the west, the Pennsylvania Assembly called the militia on September 19.17 New Jersey and Virginia would soon follow, and the three states together fielded a force of approximately 10,000 men. The rendezvous point of Carlisle, Pennsylvania was decided by Secretary Hamilton, as the town was just barely west of the Susquehanna river, generally used as the dividing line between eastern and western Pennsylvania. By the end of September the entire force had arrived in Carlisle and awaited their commander.
The town of Carlisle, lying as it did on the border between two cultural groups, was split on the validity of the Whiskey Rebellion. Anti-Federalists such as William Petrikin believed “that the western farmers were simply exercising their right to armed revolt against a government that had ceased to represent their interests.”18 He and his followers felt that government representatives did not adequately reflect their constituents, with congresspeople being mostly upper class and unfamiliar with agricultural issues. Carlisle’s elite were generally Federalists, and welcomed the arrival of President Washington and the militia. While the Anti-Federalists felt that the new democratic government was not sufficiently representative, Federalists believed that “the existence of representative institutions meant that extralegal action was no longer acceptable.”19 They agreed with many in the administration who felt that such a rebellion amounted to treason and ought to be crushed.
President Washington himself arrived in Carlisle on October 4, 1794 to great fanfare. Secretary Hamilton had written friend of the administration Ephraim Blaine on September 19 to procure lodging, and the President’s entourage was housed in the late Robert Magaw’s house which Blaine was renting.20 Accompanying the president were Secretary of War Henry Knox, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, District Court Judge Richard Peters, and the President’s personal secretary Mr. Dandridge.21 The president’s arrival parade was covered in all the area newspapers: the Philadelphia Gazette described how “our beloved Washington appeared, on horseback in a traveling dress.”22 Another paper recounted how “every man as Washington passed along poured forth his wishes for the preservation of this most valuable of their fellow citizens.”23 Most reports agree that Washington reviewed the troops on the field which is now the site of Denny Hall, a Dickinson College academic building.24
On October 6th, the people of Carlisle addressed their president. Their speech uniformly condemned the rebels, proclaiming that “The present insurrection and opposition to the Government is exceeded by none, either for its causeless origin or for the extreme malignity and wickedness with which it has been executed.”25 Anti-Federalists including William Petrikin had wanted to use Washington’s stay as an opportunity to air their grievances against the federal government, but the majority of Carlilians were so in awe upon meeting the revolutionary hero in person that no major shows of dissent took place.
The only loss of life in the Whiskey Rebellion after the federal militia got involved took place in Carlisle: “The first death came when federal troops shot a boy who had helped to raise a liberty pole. The second occurred when a drunken tavern scuffle ended with a soldier running a local man through with his bayonet.”26 President Washington later apologized for these incidents and asked that an investigation be done so that such needless loss of life could be prevented in the future.
President Washington led the militia out of Carlisle on October 11, and their journey west was relatively uneventful. Some Anti-Federalists erected liberty poles along the militia’s path, but once the force reached the heart of the rebellion, most opposition fell immediately. Constitutional order was restored, and the excise tax remained in place until President Thomas Jefferson repealed it in 1802.
In the 1790s, the newly-founded United States was deeply in debt and had no reliable sources of revenue. The 1789 Constitution had given the Federal government the right to levy both direct and indirect (excise, import, etc.) taxes, something the Articles of Confederation made almost impossible.
[1] Jerry A. Clouse, The Whiskey Rebellion: Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Frontier People Test the American Constitution (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1994): 11.
[2] Ibid 13.
[3] Lenore E. Flower, Visit of President George Washington to Carlisle, 1794 (Carlisle: The Hamilton Library and Cumberland County Historical Society, 1932): 5.
[4] Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965): 340.
[5] Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism & the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1999): 212.
[6] Clouse 18.
[7] Saul Cornell, ''Aristocracy Assailed: The Ideology of Backcountry Anti-Federalism," Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (March 1990): 1172
[8] Cornell Other 341.
[9] Ibid 341.
[10] Clouse 25.
[11] Ibid 25.
[12] Ibid 25.
[13] Ibid 26.
[14] Ibid 29.
[15] Ibid 29.
[16] Terry Bouton, Taming Democracy: "The People," the Founders and the Troubled Ending of the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): 217.
[17] Clouse 36.
[18] Wayne L. Trotta, The Cumberland County Historical Encyclopedia, “William Petrikin:
Anti-Federalist Scourge” (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society): 10.
[19] Cornell Other 209.
[20] Willis Kocher, The Cumberland County Historical Encyclopedia, “Ephraim Blaine” (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society): 12.
[21] Flower 10.
[22] Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, October 9, 1794, in Flower 13.
[23] Flower 14.
[24] Flower 15.
[25] In Clouse 16.
[26] Bouton 242.