We read history books
We do not eat them.
When the American Revolutionary War was done, the part nobody talks about came up: How was the baby United States of America going to pay the financial debt accrued by going to war? And it wasn’t a small debt, either — in 1789 dollars it was about $54 million.1
On top of which, the various State governments had racked up an additional $25 million,2 which — understandably — they had a greater interest3 in taking care of before getting around to helping out the Feds.
Along comes Alexander Hamilton — then the Secretary of the Treasury — who had hisself a couple of Good Ideas: First, he noodged Congress into consolidating both the Federal debt and the State debt into one big debt — said big debt to be handled by the Feds; and B) Then he talked Congress into passing a Sin Tax4 to pay for the one big debt. Said tax attached to all alcoholic spirits distilled domestically — particularly whiskey.
There were multiple problems5 with Part B6 of his great plan, but the fact that it was the first tax to be levied on a domestic product by the infant United States Congress has to take pride of place at the table.
Anyhoo, things did not go well — the bigger distilleries gamed the system to pay lower taxes, a whole bunch of folks wanted to know where their local representation was if they were getting taxed, lots of people got a case of the red arse regarding the requirement to register each still7, the requirement to travel all the way to a court in Philadelphia to fight the tax was a little overmuch in those days, and the Western regions — who were still getting their butts stomped in the First Indian War, and who were forbidden by Spain from using the Mississippi River to transport goods — kind of wanted to know why they were having to pay a Federal Government who wasn’t doing anything for them.
As anyone with a lick of sense might have guessed, things went rapidly rodeo.
Knuckle sandwiches were liberally dispersed. Tax collectors got tarred, feathered, and tuned-up. Various folks got their private property set on fire. Federal buildings got set on fire. Local government buildings got set on fire. Printing presses who were suspected of maybe agreeing with the government8 got set on fire.9 Mobs surrounded the homes of tax collectors (and anyone suspecting of aiding the tax collectors) and did what mobs do.10 Rioting and performative property damage was endemic, all of this — of course — leading to people getting shot.
Again, as anyone with a lick of sense might have guessed, President George Washington didn’t perzackly take this turn of events well. At all.
He appointed three commissioners to investigate and recommend a “course of action”. The investigation basically consisted of the three men telling the aggrieved citizens to “Knock it off, or else”. The “course of action” recommended to the President after the investigation failed was: “... necessary that the civil authority should be aided by a military force in order to secure a due execution of the laws...”
Not being entirely gormless, President Washington got a Supreme Court Justice11 to opine that a state of rebellion was extant.
President Washington then summoned the State militias of Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and led12 a force of about 13,00013 — plus ten Regular Army troopies — and pretty firmly Put The Boot In.
The Whiskey Rebellion was crushed by Federalised State militias in October of 1794.
No idea why that’s heavy on my mind recently. No idea at all.
Ian
That’s $1 988 034 545.45 in Monopoly money today dollars.
About $920 386 363.64 in scrip today dollars.
Yah, the pun was deliberate.
A tax levied on goods or services arbitrarily declared harmful to individuals, or society as a whole.
Sin taxes encourage the development of black markets, cause the government to become dependent on the income from the sin tax, and are regressive in nature.
We had just gone through a brutal war with the premier military on the planet. When your troopies are recovering from getting the whey shot out of them, and families are recovering from their fathers, husbands, brother and sons coming home in pieces — or in a box — this is not the time to start taxing the booze. Just saying.
Ooh, that sound familiar.
Or not disagreeing to the level the mob thought appropriate.
Lord, but feral humans do love their fire.
More fire.
Justice James Wilson. Considering how much time Justice Wilson spent dodging creditors I’m mildly surprised Washington nailed him down long enough to Officially Take Notice.
The first — and only — time I know of where sitting US President led forces into combat.
Including a whole bunch of reluctant draftees and conscripts, by the way.
The thing that continues to get me pissed is judges ruling on things that they have no legal right to rule on. Those judges need to be jailed for violating their oath.
And people need to STOP listening to judges who make rulings they have NO LEGAL RIGHT to make. A judge is not god (though they may think they are) and a ruling has no legal force at all, if it is outside of their jurisdiction. People need to stop humoring this behavior and start Punishing It.
Pedantic nitpick: President Madison exercised command during the Battle of Bladensburg (1814). OTOH, he was leading them out of combat, so maybe footnote 12 still stands.