MikeDunnAuthor<p>Today in Labor History July 17, 1794: The biggest rebel victory of the Whiskey Rebellion occurred on this date when a mob of 500 armed men, protesting a new excise tax on distilleries, clashed with troops from Fort Pitt after firing on a revenue collector and burning down his home. Many of the rebels were poor farmers, who made spirits with their excess grain, and war veterans, who believed they were still fighting against taxation without representation.</p><p>Within weeks, 13,000 uniformed militiamen were sent in to quash the rebellion, including Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton (whose buddies in the rum business were the major benefactors of the tax). Most of the rebels gave up and went home before the soldiers arrived. However, they did arrest 20 men, but most were acquitted due to mistaken identity. Only two men were convicted and sentenced to hang. However, Washington pardoned them. Furthermore, the authorities were unable to collect taxes on many of the distilleries in eastern Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania.</p><p>Nevertheless, Washington’s response was seen as successful because he demonstrated that the national government had both the will and ability to suppress popular resistance to its laws. Furthermore, it set a precedent for what types of protest the new government would tolerate. The rebels had believed the American Revolution had established the people as sovereign, with the right to change the government by force. In contrast, the Federalists in the government believed that the government was sovereign because it had been established with the consent of the people.</p><p>Susanna Rowson wrote a play called “The Volunteers” (1795) in which the militiamen were the heroes of the Whiskey Rebellion. She was also an early advocate for women’s education and an abolitionist. Her novel “Charlotte Temple” was the most popular American novel until Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s cabin.” L. Neil Smith wrote an alternative historical fiction novel, “The Probability Broach,” (1980) in which the rebels win and execute Washington for treason. David Liss published “The Whiskey Rebels” (2008), another historical fiction piece about the rebellion.</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>workingclass</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LaborHistory</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/whiskey" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>whiskey</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/rebellion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>rebellion</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/insurrection" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>insurrection</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/uprising" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>uprising</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/taxes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>taxes</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>books</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/historicalfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>historicalfiction</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/novel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>novel</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookstadon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>bookstadon</span></a></span></p>