The Whiskey Rebellion by William
Hodgeland, 2006, Excerpts
Recently liberated by the revolution, the people’s movement
had strong opinions about democracy and economic fairness. In America, the people’s movement drew energy
from the Great Awakening, whose spiritual radicalism had gripped the colonies
in the 1730s and ‘40s. By the 1770s, the movement wanted laws to dictate fair
and equal distribution of wealth and credit. It wanted to limit the profits
that a few moneyed men could reap from what it saw as the suffering and
degradation of entire communities.
It wanted democratic access to the political process. The
people’s movement wanted that cycle stopped by law and had often used rowdy and
sadistic tactics to frighten legislatures into providing relief. The people’s
movement had long employed tactics that were extralegal, often illegal.
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