The Whiskey Rebellion by William
Hodgeland, 2006, Excerpts
On Christmas morning, 1794, twenty thousand Philadelphians
mobbed the broad, cobbled streets of their city to see the defeated whiskey
rebels brought in from the west. If the people were expecting a big show, they
had reason to be disappointed. There were twenty prisoners, and General
Blackbeard White himself had been given the job of escorting them from the
Forks. Already skinny, pale, and exhausted by questioning and imprisonment when
leaving Fort Fayette on November 25, they’d spent a month crossing mountains
forbidding enough in summer, locked now in winter. Each prisoner had walked. General
White ordered the beheading of anyone attempting escape: heads, he’s announced
hopefully, would be displayed in the city. Only twelve cases went to trial, and
in the end only two rebels were convicted. With the crisis over, Washington
pardoned the condemned men.
In Washington’s stated opinion, suppressing the Whiskey
Rebellion had drawn from the American people the support for law and government
that marked their highest character. Washington also noted that the operation
worked out well for him personally. With commercial distilling newly
profitable, he added whiskey making to his endeavors at Mount Vernon.
Yet the whiskey tax remained hard to collect. There were
occasional disruptions of court proceedings and occasional threats, but mainly
there was sneakiness and recalcitrance, smuggling and moonshining. The
authority that established itself at last in the western country was not
challenged. It was eluded.
In the election of 1800, the Jeffersonians came to power and
the whiskey tax was repealed.
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