This day in history: President George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania on this day in 1794. The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and it was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government.
The "whiskey tax" became law in 1791, and was intended to generate revenue for the war debt incurred during the Revolutionary War and to also pay for the Capitol Building. Many of the resisters were war veterans who believed that they were fighting for the principles of the American Revolution, in particular against taxation without local representation, while the federal government maintained that the taxes were the legal expression of Congressional taxation powers.
As James and Nicolaus Woehlke write: "the whiskey rebellion of 1794: farmers were unfairly taxed for producing whiskey, which for some was the only viable means of transporting their corn. The farmers quickly rebelled and refused to pay the tax. The new federal government, which had only recently been founded on, among other things, the principle of fair taxation, responded harshly by sending an entire army, led by President George Washington in general’s garb, to force the farmers into compliance."
Ryan McMaken adds "Washington, enraged that anyone would dare oppose his government’s taxes, raged at the tax resisters denouncing them as democratic rabble. Jefferson found this whole display to be quite offensive, and labeled the effort to crush the tax rebellion as nothing more than making 'war on our own citizens.'"
This "war" failed and Murray Rothbard states that it was "considered properly...a victory for liberty and property rather than for federal taxation."
Wikipedia lists hundreds of tax revolts over the centuries starting from the first century Jews all the way to restaurant owners in the Marche region of Italy, who suffered under mandated closures in 2020.
In 2011, the Whiskey Rebellion Festival was started in Washington, Pennsylvania. This annual event is held in July and includes live music, food, and historic reenactments, featuring the "tar and feathering" of the tax collector.
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