The taxing of what item caused rioting and attacks in Western Pennsylvania in 1794, enough that militia troops were dispatched to squelch it?
"Cash poor, they were outraged that they had been singled for taxation, especially since they felt this money went to Eastern moneyed interests and the federal revenue officers who began to swarm the hills looking for illegal stills. Insurgents in Western Pennsylvania shut the courts and hounded federal officials, but Jeffersonian leader Albert Gallatin mobilized the western moderates, and thus forestalled a serious outbreak of violence. Washington, seeing the need to assert federal supremacy, called out 13,000 state militia, and marched toward Washington, Pennsylvania, to suppress what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. The rebellion evaporated in late 1794 as"
"protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed men attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. Washington responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time calling on governors to send a militia force to enforce the tax. Washington himself rode at the head of an army"
"(1983, 1985, 1989, and 2007). During the mid-18th century, the economy of the Pittsburgh region was focused on agriculture and trade. After the American Revolutionary War, the government placed a tax on whiskey in order to pay off national debt. In 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion occurred in Pittsburgh and was the first challenge to the government.“The fledgling Federal government had decided to levy its first tax against whiskey, but the farmers argued they didn't have cash to pay taxes on bartered goods, and marched in protest. Washington had to send troops to squelch the protest and enforce the tax laws.”"
"Pennsylvania, but the new excise law was still unsatisfactory to many westerners. Appeals to nonviolent resistance were unsuccessful. On September 11, 1791, a recently appointed tax collector named Robert Johnson was tarred and feathered by a disguised gang in Washington County. A man sent by officials to serve court warrants to Johnson's attackers was whipped, tarred, and feathered. Because of these and other violent attacks, the tax went uncollected in 1791 and early 1792. The attackers modeled their actions on the protests of the American Revolution. Supporters of the excise argued that there was a difference between taxation without representation"
"on liquor and distilled drinks. This tax had been proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Washington in 1791. The tensions of the whiskey tax intensified over the next three years and in 1794 there was a state of insurrection in the area. Thirteen thousand militiamen under the direct command of George Washington were sent to put down the insurrection. They passed through the Ohiopyle area on their way to arrest the rebels. The rebels ""could never be found,"" according to Thomas Jefferson, but the militia rounded up"
"McClellan. In July 1794, approximately 7,000 local militiamen marched on Pittsburgh, whose citizens they believed supported the tax. The mob banished several of the townspeople and news of the uprising prompted George Washington to raise a 15,000-man force to march on Western Pennsylvania. McClelland, serving as Chair of the Committee, attempted to reconcile by submitting the following appeal on September 1, 1794. Gentleman, The committee appointed by the Committee of Safety at Redstone, the 28th August last, to confer with the commissioners of the United States and State of Pennsylvania, and agreeable to the resolution of the said committee do"
"Many farmers distilled their corn harvest into whiskey, increasing its value while lowering its transportation costs. At that time, whiskey was used as a form of currency on the frontier. When the federal government imposed an excise tax on whiskey, Western Pennsylvania farmers felt victimized, leading to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Farmers from the region rallied at Braddock's Field and marched on Pittsburgh. The short-lived rebellion was put down, however, when President George Washington sent in militias from several states. The town continued to grow in manufacturing capability. In 1792, the boatyards in Pittsburgh built a sloop, ""Western Experiment."""
"instituted a progressive land value tax of up to 1% of the value of a property. Taxpayers in eastern Pennsylvania resisted federal tax collectors, and in March 1799 the bloodless Fries's Rebellion broke out. Led by Revolutionary War veteran John Fries, rural German-speaking farmers protested what they saw as a threat to their republican liberties and to their churches. The tax revolt raised the specter of class warfare, and Hamilton led the army into the area to put down the revolt. The subsequent trial of Fries gained wide national attention, and Adams pardoned Fries and two others after they were"
"landlords, conflicts with American Indians, and, most importantly, the high excise tax on whiskey. President George Washington ordered 13,000 troops to the Washington, Pennsylvania area as the first test of the power of the new government. When the militias arrived in Parkison's Ferry (now Monongahela, Pennsylvania), they began arresting suspected rebels. Among those who had warrants out for their arrest was Bradford. According to Harriet Branton's book, ""David Bradford and His House"", Bradford was at home on October 25, 1794, when he was warned of the approach of a cavalry unit with orders to capture him. Bradford leaped from a"
"characterized their experience leading up to the Revolutionary War; a sense of isolation and alienation from government authorities who failed to represent or consider their special needs and interests. The excise tax, passed in July 1791, placed a burden on western farmers who converted excess grain into whiskey, which was easier to transport and much more marketable. Despite continued petitions from western counties, the United States Congress refused to repeal the excise act and westerners responded by ignoring the tax, harassing tax collectors, destroying property, and raising liberty poles. In July 1794, 7,000 local militia men organized to march on"
"federal tax agents. Beginning on September 11, 1791, western Pennsylvania farmers rebelled against the federal government's taxation on western Pennsylvania whiskey distillers during the Whiskey Rebellion. Their first victim was reportedly a recently appointed tax collector named Robert Johnson. He was tarred and feathered by a disguised gang in Washington County. Other officials who attempted to serve court warrants on Johnson's attackers were whipped, tarred, and feathered. Because of these and other violent attacks, the tax went uncollected in 1791 and early 1792. The attackers modeled their actions on the protests of the American Revolution. Joseph Smith, founder of the"
"foraging raid made him locally famous. He later also commanded a company in the government's campaign to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. At the time of the rebellion named for him (1799-1800), Fries was living near Charlestown (present-day Trumbauersville). As an itinerant auctioneer, he became well acquainted with the German-Americans issues in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania. Starting in February 1799, he organized meetings to discuss a collective response to a tax the federal government had levied in response to the Quasi-War. Federal officers who were sent to Pennsylvania to collect its portion of the tax were resisted by"
"lowered tax rates, but it did not suffice. Strong opposition to the whiskey tax by cottage producers in remote, rural regions erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794; in Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, whiskey was the basic export product and was fundamental to the local economy. In response to the rebellion, believing compliance with the laws was vital to the establishment of federal authority, Hamilton accompanied to the rebellion's site President Washington, General Henry ""Light Horse Harry"" Lee, and more federal troops than were ever assembled in one place during the Revolution. This overwhelming display of force intimidated the"
"had accumulated during the Revolutionary War. The Congress set low excise taxes on only a few goods, such as, whiskey, rum, tobacco, snuff and refined sugar. The tax on whiskey was highly controversial and set of massive protests by Western Farmers in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was suppressed by General Washington at the head of an army. The whiskey excise tax collected so little and was so despised it was abolished by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802. All tariffs were on a long list of goods (dutiable goods) with different customs rates and some goods on a ""free"""
"farmers and was widely resented and resisted. While resistance in the form of refusal to pay the excise tax or to cooperate in the enforcement of excise laws persisted and largely succeeded in some areas, in Western Pennsylvania this resistance erupted into attacks on tax collectors and eventual armed revolt — the Whiskey Rebellion — which was violently suppressed by federal government troops under the command of former revolutionary war commander in chief George Washington. Fries's Rebellion began in opposition to a federal window-tax instituted by the Adams administration, with resisters impeding the tax assessors and refusing to pay the"
"reacted by ignoring the tax, harassing tax collectors, destroying property, and raising liberty poles. A meeting of key residents of the western counties of Pennsylvania, the proceedings of which plainly indicated that the feeling of opposition had intensified, took place on August 21 and 22, 1794. The following delegates were present: John Canon, William Wallace, Shesbazer Bentley, Benjamin Parkison, John Huey, John Badollet, John Hamilton, Neal Gillespie, David Bradford, Rev. David Phillips, Matthew Jamison, James Marshel, James Robinson, James Stewart, Robert McClure, Peter Lyle, Alexander Long, Samuel Wilson, Edward Cook, Albert Gallatin, John Smilie, Bazil Bowel, Thomas Gaddis, and John"
"the town of Pittsburgh whose citizens they believed supported the tax. The mob was appeased with the banishment of several of the most offensive townspeople, but news of the uprising prompted George Washington to call up a 15,000-man force to march on Western Pennsylvania. By the time the troops finally approached Pittsburgh, in October, the rebel army had already dispersed. Federal officers arrested 150 men they identified as being involved in the rebellion. Of these, twenty-four were taken to Philadelphia for trial, but only two were convicted and were then given presidential pardons. In the summer of 1794, Thomas Gaddis'"
"frontier counties of Appalachia. Opposition remained especially strident in western Pennsylvania. In June, Neville was burned in effigy by a crowd of about 100 people in Washington County. On the night of November 22, 1793, men broke into the home of tax collector Benjamin Wells in Fayette County. Wells was, like Neville, one of the wealthier men in the region. At gunpoint, the intruders forced him to surrender his commission. President Washington offered a reward for the arrest of the assailants, to no avail. The resistance came to a climax in 1794. In May of that year, federal district attorney"
"Whiskey Rebellion The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary war veteran Major James McFarlane. The so-called ""whiskey tax"" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. It became law in 1791, and was intended to generate revenue for the war debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. The tax applied to all distilled spirits, but American whiskey was by far the country's most popular"
"tax evasion, launching prosecutions against dozens of distilleries. On July 15, 1794, tax collector John Neville and his slaves fired at a militia that had surrounded his house, killing a member of the militia. The next day, a group of militia members seeking Neville fired on a group of federal soldiers, causing casualties on both sides. Following this confrontation, the militia captured a federal marshal and continued to clash with federal forces. As word of this rebellion spread across the frontier, a whole series of loosely organized resistance measures were taken, including robbing the mail, stopping court proceedings, and the"
"the Revolutionary War. The Congress set low excise taxes on only a few goods, such as, whiskey, rum, tobacco, snuff and refined sugar. The tax on whiskey was highly controversial and set of massive protests by Western Farmers in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, which was suppressed by General Washington at the head of an army. The whiskey excise tax collected so little and was so despised it was abolished by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802. All tariffs were on a long list of goods (dutiable goods) with different customs rates and some goods on a ""free"" list. Congress spent"
"that it was entirely within the powers granted to the federal government. Hamilton's other proposals, including protection tariffs for nascent American industry, were defeated. The Whiskey Rebellion happened in 1794—when settlers in the Monongahela Valley of western Pennsylvania protested against the new federal tax on whiskey, which the settlers shipped across the mountains to earn money. It was the first serious test of the federal government. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court. By August 1794, the protests became dangerously close to outright rebellion, and on August 7, several"
"Fries's Rebellion The John Fries Rebellion (), also called Fries's Rebellion, the House Tax Rebellion, the Home Tax Rebellion and, in Deitsch, the Heesses-Wasser Uffschtand, was an armed tax revolt among Pennsylvania Dutch farmers between 1799 and 1800. It was the third of three tax-related rebellions in the 18th century United States, the earlier two being Shays' Rebellion (central and western Massachusetts, 1786–87) and the Whiskey Rebellion (western Pennsylvania, 1794). It was commemorated in 2003 with a Pennsylvania historical marker erected in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where it first erupted. When the Quasi-War with France threatened to escalate in 1798, Congress raised"
"at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market, other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable spirits. From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. ""Whiskey Boys"" also conducted violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and Georgia. This civil disobedience eventually culminated in armed conflict in the Whiskey Rebellion. President George Washington marched at the head of 13,000 soldiers to suppress the insurrection."
"social reformers, who hoped that a ""sin tax"" would raise public awareness about the harmful effects of alcohol. The whiskey excise act, sometimes known as the ""Whiskey Act"", became law in March 1791. George Washington defined the revenue districts, appointed the revenue supervisors and inspectors, and set their pay in November 1791. The population of Western Pennsylvania was 17,000 in 1790. Among the farmers in the region, the whiskey excise was immediately controversial, with many people on the frontier arguing that it unfairly targeted westerners. Whiskey was a popular drink, and farmers often supplemented their incomes by operating small stills."
"of the Act, including exemptions for: clergy, conscientious objectors, teachers, students, and jurors. And though a number of able-bodied white men remained available for service, many simply did not show up for militia duty. Penalties for failure to appear were enforced sporadically and selectively. None is mentioned in the legislation. The first test of the militia system occurred in July 1794, when a group of disaffected Pennsylvania farmers rebelled against federal tax collectors whom they viewed as illegitimate tools of tyrannical power. Attempts by the four adjoining states to raise a militia for nationalization to suppress the insurrection proved inadequate."
"present-day Jones Avenue across from Benjamin Fairless School. Braddock's Battlefield History Center commemorates this battle. During the late 18th-century farming was prevalent in the North Braddock area with the nearby Monongahela River used for trade. Whiskey became a very profitable product to trade, with much being sent to the New Orleans area. In 1794 a whiskey tax was created, drawing in protest over 8,000 settlers from western Pennsylvania to the North Braddock area, as part of the Whiskey Rebellion. The angry settlers would not disperse easily, and President Washington led an army to suppress the rebellion. The British commander of"
"some western Pennsylvanians. In August 1792, Neville rented a room in Pittsburgh for his tax office, but the landlord turned him out after being threatened with violence by the Mingo Creek Association. From this point on, tax collectors were not the only people targeted in Pennsylvania; those who cooperated with federal tax officials also faced harassment. Anonymous notes and newspaper articles signed by ""Tom the Tinker"" threatened those who complied with the whiskey tax. Those who failed to heed the warnings might have their barns burned or their stills destroyed. Resistance to the excise tax continued through 1793 in the"
"obstreperous to the point that Washington began to wish they had never come.” Present-day members of the 201st Field Artillery are doubtless equally proud of both of these descriptions of their comrades from an earlier era. Volunteer elements of the 10th and 16th Brigades were mustered into federal service in 1794 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising of farmers in western Pennsylvania challenging the collection of a federal excise tax on whiskey. President Washington ordered a military force composed of militia units from four adjacent states into the area to enforce the law. In so doing he asserted the"
"Governor Lee appointed Winder a major general. In August of the same year, as the result of discontent which culminated in the Whiskey Rebellion, the President ordered the militia to enforce the federal laws to collect the tax upon distilled spirits. The Governor, consequently, ordered the militia to march to Western Maryland to prevent the insurrection from spilling over into Maryland from Pennsylvania. By the time the troops arrived, the rebellion had been quelled, and since Winder's force was not needed, he returned home where he was discharged from further duty. In 1796, Winder made his first attempt at public"
"allies enacted the Direct Tax of 1798. Direct taxation by the federal government was widely unpopular, and the government's revenue under Washington had mostly come from excise taxes and tariffs. Though Washington had maintained a balanced budget with the help of a growing economy, increased military expenditures threatened to cause major budget deficits, and Hamilton, Wolcott, and Adams developed a taxation plan to meet the need for increased government revenue. The Direct Tax of 1798 instituted a progressive land value tax of up to 1% of the value of a property. Taxpayers in eastern Pennsylvania resisted federal tax collectors, and"
"of the oldest surviving educational buildings in the nation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Bradford also became active in political affairs, and by 1791 he was becoming more and more absorbed in the escalating protest over a whiskey tax which had been levied by the federal government that year, and the general treatment of Western Pennsylvanians by the East. By 1794, Bradford had become a prominent figure in the Whiskey Rebellion, an insurrection that was caused, in part, by the lack of federal courts (which necessitated trips to Philadelphia for trial), large numbers of absentee"
"national debt; grain farmers strongly protested in frontier mostly in districts located in Pennsylvania, saying that they were unrepresented and unfairly shouldering too much of the debt and compared their situation to the unfair British taxation during the former revolution. Washington, after making numerous appeals, issued a final proclamation on September 25, threatening the use of military force, reminding the protestors that, unlike the rule of the British crown, the Federal law was issued by state elected representatives. Threats and violence against tax collectors escalated into full-scale defiance of federal authority in 1794 giving rise to the Whiskey Rebellion. The"