One of the things that the Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton,
did to get money for the new government of the United States was put
a tax on whiskey. In the late 1700s, many farmers grew grain. However,
it took them a long time to transport their grain from their farms to the
cities where the people bought the grain. If the farmers took too long
to get their grain to the city, it would rot, and they wouldn’t get any
money for it. So, many farmers chose to turn their grain into whiskey.
Whiskey doesn’t go bad, so the farmers could take a long time to get it
to the city without having to worry about it getting rotten. When the
national government put the tax on whiskey, people who bought the
whiskey had to pay more money for it. Since whiskey was more
expensive because of the tax,
fewer people were able to buy it.
This hurt the grain farmers
because they were not able to sell
as much of their whiskey.
Some farmers who did not think
this was fair decided to rebel
The tax collector being beaten up by the
against the national government
angry farmers. Cool.
to try to get them to get rid of the
whiskey tax. One group of farmers that was carrying guns beat up a tax
collector, tarred and feathered him, and stole his horse. Another group
of farmers grabbed their guns and threatened to take over the city of
Pittsburg.
George Washington preparing to stop the
Whiskey Rebellion
George Washington wanted to
prove a point. He wanted to show
the farmers that the new
government was powerful and in
charge, and if people didn’t like it,
too bad! He sent 13,000 soldiers
to stop the rebelling farmers. The
farmers heard that the army was
coming, stopped the rebellion,
and ran.
George Washington showed
everyone that the new
national government would
enforce1 its laws (that
means that the national
government would make
people follow the laws).
the Whiskey Rebellion
1
enforce: force people to follow