My daddy, he made whiskey,
My granddaddy, he made it too.
We ain’t paid no whiskey tax since 1792…
— ‘Copper Kettle’, by A.F. Beddoe
Early in my prosecutorial career I worked on a case in conjunction with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). That experience contributed to my skepticism of the integrity of the federal government.
Working on that case included me traveling to the ATF office in Pittsburgh — a trip that brought me in contact with some family history. While in Pittsburgh I took an excursion east to Monroeville, where my dad was born.
His family has lived in that area since before the American Revolution. I visited the cemetery of the ‘Old Stone Church’, where I saw the graves of generations of his ancestors.
Then while waiting in the lobby of the ATF office, I noticed the walls were decorated with framed pages of local newspaper stories of prohibition-era ‘revenue agent’ cases from that area. One was about the raid of a moonshine still near Monroeville. Low and behold, two of the suspected moonshiners were named Beatty!
I later asked by dad about that. He chuckled and said, “They were the black sheep branch of the family, who’d been moonshining since the whiskey rebellion – and probably still are!” It sparked my curiosity about the Whiskey Rebellion.
This column is not just going to be a boring history exposition. The government’s response to that rebellion illustrates the difference between a great President (George Washington), and what we have now.
The Whiskey Tax Act was passed by the federal Congress, and signed into law by President Washington, in 1791. It was the brainchild of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton for raising revenue to retire the debt from the revolutionary war.
At that time whiskey was a commodity of exchange used in place of scarce cash. So the majority of small farmers distilled whiskey as a side-line, from corn they grew themselves,. The whiskey tax, which had to be paid in cash, was economically devastating to those small farmers. Worse, it was a regressive tax that burdened small producers more than large commercial distilleries — which may have been a hidden agenda behind the tax (some things never change).
Small farm distillers on the frontier, such as western Pennsylvania were particularly hard-hit by the whiskey tax. So some of them (including, apparently, a Beatty family member or two) organized to protest the tax.
After all, hadn’t they recently fought a revolution against unfair English taxation?
The anti-whiskey tax protests morphed into actively obstructing, intimidating, and attacking federal tax collectors — some of whom were tarred and feathered. The protesting farmers, many of whom were veterans of the revolutionary war, organized themselves into a small army and declared their intention to march on Philadelphia, which at the time was the United States capitol.
Treasury Secretary Hamilton wasn’t going to tolerate defiance of a federal tax by a bunch of rustic rubes in the hinterlands (which may be why he is now a darling of the political left, since the Broadway musical loosely based on his life made him popular among the elites). So he implored President Washington to declare the farmers insurrectionists, which Washington reluctantly did — and then in 1794, deployed federal troops to quash the ‘whiskey rebels’.
Washington, who took his constitutional role as Commander-in-Chief of the army literally, led the troops into western Pennsylvania himself. When the great General George Washington appeared at the head of federal troops, the farmers “army” dispersed, and the ‘whiskey rebellion’ fell apart.
Hamilton, a member of the elite himself, and being the chief advocate of the power of the federal central government, wasn’t going to let these upstart “rebel farmers” get off that easy. He orchestrated the arrest of about 150 of the leaders and had them charged with treason — all but 10 of whom were later released. Of those 10 who stood trial, eight were acquitted. But two —John Mitchell and Philip Weigle — were convicted of Treason and sentenced to death.
President Washington was reluctant to hang veterans of his own Continental Army who were, in essence, tax protestors (what the whole American Revolution started over), so he stayed execution of the sentences. Then in 1795 he pardoned both Mitchell and Weigle, saying, “It appears to me no less consistent with the public good than it is with my personal feelings, to mingle in the operations of government every degree of moderation which the national justice, dignity and safety may permit.”
Seven years later, with Hamilton out of office, the Whiskey Tax Act was repealed.
Fast forward to March 1865 and the end of the War Between the States. The Confederate army is on the verge of defeat. The rebellious southern states are in ruin. The Confederate government is on the run.
President Lincoln tells union army commander General Grant to “let ‘em up easy”, and Grant’s terms of surrender to confederate commander General Lee were conciliatory. Surrendering soldiers were allowed to keep their horses “for spring plowing”. All the surrendering confederate soldiers were required to do was swear allegiance to the United States, and they were free to go on with their lives.
Lee himself was not even imprisoned, let alone charged with treason. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, after being imprisoned for two years, was released without charges. That was consistent with Lincoln’s proclamation in his second inaugural address that his policy toward the rebellious south would be “to bind up the nation’s wounds” “with malice toward none, and charity for all”.
Compare how Presidents Washington and Lincoln treated American citizens who engaged in open armed rebellion against the federal government… with how the current President’s Justice Department, is treating the unarmed American citizens who trespassed in the capitol (a public building) on January 6, 2021… after being let in by the capitol police.
Many of those capitol trespassers have been arrested and are being held in solitary confinement, without bond, awaiting trial for… well … the legality of the charges isn’t clear. Others who have been convicted received prison sentences.
This is how totalitarian dictatorships treat their citizens who dare to protest.
Contrast Washington’s admonition “to mingle in the operations of government every degree of moderation”, and Lincoln’s desire “to bind up the nation’s wounds” with “malice toward none, and charity for all”, with this from the current occupant of the White House.
The difference is between great men of honor, and a petty political party hack.
The current government’s draconian treatment of the capitol protesters is inconsistent with our history as a free society that recognizes the right to protest against the federal government — even to the point of “moderation” towards those who openly rebel.
I can only imagine what Washington and Lincoln would think of the man now sitting in their chair.