Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion (Paperback) | Released: 22 Feb 2017

*Includes pictures
*Includes contemporary accounts of the insurrections
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading

Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government. Besides hampering the Continental Army, the inability of the national government to raise revenue made foreign policy difficult. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress was also completely unable to pay any of the debts it incurred to foreign powers during the Revolutionary War. Though allied powers had lent to the American government on favorable terms and no repayment was expected until the end of hostilities, the hope of ever paying national debts without a national government that could tax was slim. In particular, the prospect of the new nation defaulting on its loans from France led to the end of the Articles of Confederation. To top it all off, the Articles of Confederation also had no judiciary or executive branch. Therefore, laws passed by the Congress could not be enforced by the national government: the enforcement of laws was left to the mercy of the states. Likewise, there was no national judiciary to decide disputes over national law.
The series of riots known collectively as Shays' Rebellion began during the earliest years of American independence and were led by men who were, by their very nature, rebels. Unlike most countries in the world, 18th century America was made up of people who believed in change, and who were willing to leave their homelands and strike out for the unknown to find it. The men who had just years earlier participated in the American Revolution were not afraid to break down a government they did not like; indeed, many of them reveled in it. When Massachusetts enacted laws that Shays and others didn't like, the rebels had no qualms about taking up arms, and while the rebellion was eventually put down, changes were made to prevent similar problems in the future. Out of this came peace, order, and more freedom.
As Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton was looking for ways to shore up the young nation's finances and pay off the debts incurred by the Revolution. At the same time, he believed in strengthening the federal government vis-à-vis the states, which would eventually make him a leader of the Federalist party but also compel him to push for a tax on distillers of alcohol, many of whom took their excess corn and grain crops and produced liquors. Ironically, Hamilton came up with the idea of this tax to avoid more direct forms of taxation, and because he didn't think it would be difficult to collect.
What Hamilton didn't consider was just how ubiquitous the production of whiskey and other liquors were on the frontier, where they were often used as a form of currency itself. In addition to being upset at this new tax, Westerners believed it was disproportionately aimed at them because Americans still residing on the East Coast weren't as reliant on the production of whiskey.
In 1794, violence actually broke out, and with the tax opponents numbering in the thousands, President Washington himself felt compelled to raise a militia force and personally lead it to deal with the rebels, the only time an American president actually led soldiers in the field. Ultimately, no pitched battle took place once the militia was marched into western Pennsylvania, but dozens were arrested and tried for treason in the wake of the episode.