StudentHandout1TheWhiskeyRebellion-ReadingtoBeInformed.docVIP

Student Handout 1: The Whiskey Rebellion-Reading to Be Informed Pennsylvania and the New Nation’s Debt During the American Revolution, eastern Pennsylvanians were so preoccupied with suppressing (holding back) the loyalists and fighting the British that they did little to defend the frontier. So by 1780, it was almost impossible for the new government of 1776, who were eager to make changes in their new, independent country, to collect excise (taxes on commodities or items traded for income) and property taxes in the western regions. After the American Revolutionary War, many of the states in the new nation were faced with taxation to help pay the debt caused by the war, as well as for the expense of fighting Native Americans in an attempt to open the frontier. However, between 1780 and 1790 Pennsylvania raised almost all of its money to help pay the debt by selling state land. This action meant that Pennsylvanians were relieved of taxation, which also helped the government from being attacked by unhappy citizens. Pennsylvanians enjoyed this privilege until 1791 when Congress approved Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s national excise tax that included whiskey. Whiskey and other grain products were major economic activities of western Pennsylvania. Two of the nation’s major distilling regions, western Pennsylvania and Kentucky, regarded this as an unfair burden. Why, they asked, should we be exclusively and unfairly taxed to pay off the national debt and benefit wealthy easterners and foreigners? Western Pennsylvanians Say “NO” to the Tax There were several reasons why some western Pennsylvanians saw the tax as being unfair. First, the cost of the tax was 54 cents per gallon for those who operated stills that produced less than 400 gallons of whiskey per year. Small manufacturers in the West felt they were paying a higher tax than the large manufacturers of whiskey in the East. Large manufacturers not only paid a flat tax regardless of the