[Copernicus]

Interesting account of the struggle between Big Government as conceived by Alexander Hamilton and self reliant, independent agrarian Americans.

Contemporary Americans will find the conflict hauntingly familar

Best regards to all

[Citizen Tom Paine]

When Washington marched at the head of the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, it was larger that any that he had lead against the Brits. Think about it for a minute.

What the article didn't say was that the whiskey was much easier to transport from the frontier to the market that the grain that it was made from.

[secretagent]

He'd been embodying republican judgment for so long that what might have been oppressive requirements of office -- audiences, dinners, dances, teas -- seemed to come naturally. In black velvet or purple satin, his huge frame, still magnificently straight, could endow any occasion with serenity and seriousness, with grace. Yet what George Washington really had to do all day was apply his enormous capacity for administrative thoroughness to a pile of awful problems that grew more numerous all the time. They were problems of mere survival. The Royal Navy was seizing U.S. ships. The British Army declined to evacuate forts on U.S. soil. Indian wars brought terrible carnage and no progress. Washington had been harried, throughout his first term, by battles within his own cabinet: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton undermined each other and, inevitably, Washington's efforts. Yet both men had been essential to him. Now Jefferson had quit to lead the nation's first opposition party. Hamilton, still in the cabinet, ever more essential, led the party in power. Of all dangers to the new nation, Washington was sure that party politics would be the deadliest.

Precarious beginning of the Republic.

[U S Army EOD]

This was probably our second Civil War. The first was in the South during the American Revolution. Georgia furnished more men to fight for the Crown than they did against it. The Tory rate in most of the Southern States were high.

The Whiskey Rebellion was actually a form of a civil war since a portion of country was fighting another protion of the country. We would have been much better off if they had won and annexed the rest of the United States and made whiskey cheap. Had this happened, the future would have meant that no one would really worry that much over future problems.

[elkfersupper]

Thank you for posting this.

I've been thinking of it myself.

People need to be reminded.

[billbears]

Well George did have to eliminate the competition, what else did you expect him to do? Hamilton legacy bump

[Moonman62]

The rebels had some good points, but they went about the wrong way of fighting it.

There was good and bad on both sides.

[Physicist]

Woah! Just this evening I was reading to my daughters the description of this book from a flyer that came with my History Book Club catalog, and describing to them the significance of the conflict (from both sides). It came just today in the mail. I may have to order it.

[quietolong]

And before that let's not forget Shay's Rebellion

Daniel Shays (1747?-1825, born Hopkinton, MA), a former Revolutionary Army captain, led a rebellion by farmers against unsettled economic conditions and against politicians and laws which were grossly unfair to farmers and working people in general. They protested against excessive taxes on property, polling taxes which preented the poor from voting, unfair actions by the court of common pleas, the high cost of lawsuits,......

Excerpt from:
Shays' Rebellion
http://www.shaysnet.com/dshays.html

Sounds familiar don’t it.

History just keeps repeating.

[NoCurrentFreeperByThatName]

bump