The Whiskey Rebellion -- Timeline
March 1791: Federalists in Congress succeed in passing an excise tax on domestically distilled spirits (i.e.,
liquor) and provide an elaborate system of local inspectors and collection officers to insure that the tax is paid.
September 1792: The excise tax provokes opposition in frontier areas, where spirits were distilled primarily for
personal use, not for sale, and where a tradition of militant individualism objected to the presence of tax
inspectors. In response, George Washington issues a presidential proclamation condemning activities that tend
"to obstruct the operation of the laws of the United States for raising a revenue upon spirits distilled within the
same."
July 1794: Following unsuccessful petitions against the excise tax, an armed group in western Pennsylvania
attacks a federal marshal when he attempts to serve papers on those who have not registered their stills as
required by law. Two days later, insurgents burn the home of the local tax collector. As the uprising spreads,
government agents and local citizens sympathetic to the government become the target of violence and
harassment.
August 2, 1794: Washington confers with Pennsylvania officials and his cabinet to set a course for meeting this
emergency. He decides to lay the matter before a Justice of the Supreme Court in order to determine, as one
cabinet member wrote, "all the means vested in the President for suppressing the progress of the mischief." Two
days later the court rules that circumstances in western Pennsylvania cannot be controlled by civil authorities
and warrant a military response.
August 7, 1794: Washington calls up the militia in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia to
assemble a force of nearly 13,000 men, "feeling the deepest regret for the occasion, but withal, the most solemn
conviction, that the essential interests of the Union demand it." He also offers amnesty to all insurgents who
"disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes" by September 1.
August 21, 1794: Washington sends three federal commissioners into western Pennsylvania in a final attempt to
resolve the situation peacefully. Their efforts are met with violent resistance, and on September 24 they report
that "there is no probability that . . [the laws] can at present be enforced by the usual course of civil authority,
and that some more competent force is necessary to cause the laws to be duly executed."
September 25, 1794: Washington issues a proclamation ordering the militia to assemble and march against the
insurgents: "Every form of conciliation not inconsistent with the being of Government, has been adopted
without effect . . . [and] Government is set at defiance, the contest being whether a small portion of the United
States shall dictate to the whole union, and at the expence of those, who desire peace, indulge a desperate
ambition; Now therefore I, George Washington, . . . deploring that the American name should be sullied by the
outrages of citizens on their own Government; . . . but resolved . . . to reduce the refractory to a due
subordination to the law; Do Hereby declare . . . that a force . . . adequate to the exigency, is already in motion
to the scene of disaffection; . . . And I do, moreover, exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to
contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading directly or indirectly to those crimes, which produce this
resort to military coercion."
November 17, 1794: Hamilton writes to Washington from western Pennsylvania that "the list of prisoners has
been very considerably increased, probably to the amount of 150. . . . Subsequent intelligence shews that there
is no regular assemblage of the fugitives . . . only small vagrant parties . . . affording no point of Attack. Every
thing is urging for the return of the troops."
November 19, 1794: Hamilton notifies Washington that the army "is generally in motion homeward," leaving
behind a regiment to maintain order.
July 10, 1795: Washington issues a pardon to those insurgents who were taken prisoner but were not yet
sentenced or indicted. By this time, most had already been acquitted for lack of evidence.
Source: http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=311