Posted on 08/01/2010 3:44:55 PM PDT by mdittmar
Considered as one of the most important events in America's early history, the Whiskey Rebellion began on March 3, 1791, when the U.S. Congress in Philadelphia passed a federal excise tax of seven cents per gallon on whiskey in an effort to pay off debts incurred by the Revolutionary War. While most Americans at that time felt negatively toward taxation, the intrepid farmers of Western Pennsylvania proved outright hostile to the idea.
Why Western Pennsylvania?
Because it was too difficult and costly to transport grain crops over the mountainous roads to larger Eastern markets, many frontier farmers converted their grain to whiskey, thereby increasing its value and marketability. The new excise whiskey tax ignored these necessities of pioneer life, however, leaving farmers with no means to pay the tax at the still long before a sale was made over the mountains to the east.
Resistance to the whiskey tax stretched from Western Pennsylvania, through the western frontiers of Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas, with most farmers believing that a government which played little part in their frontier life had no right to steal money that they themselves had earned.
When you stumbled across a still you kept your eyes on the ground and walked right on by. It was a price of freedom to ramble.
Tar and feathers;)
Help me with some history please. Thought that washington led his army as commander in chief even though hed was not president?
The role of President didn’t exist yet, let alone combined with Commander in Chief of the military. It wasn’t a given that they would be, even at the Convention.
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