The Whiskey Rebellion Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution

by Slaughter, Thomas P.

• ISBN13: 9780195051919
• ISBN10: 0195051912
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-01-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

When President George Washington ordered an army of 13,000 men to march west in 1794 to crush a tax rebellion among frontier farmers, he established a range of precedents that continues to define federal authority over localities today. The "Whiskey Rebellion" marked the firstlarge-scale resistance to a law of the U.S. government under the Constitution. This classic confrontation between champions of liberty and defenders of order was long considered the most significant event in the first quarter-century of the new nation. Thomas P. Slaughter recaptures thehistorical drama and significance of this violent episode in which frontier West and cosmopolitan East battled over the meaning of the American Revolution. The book not only offers the broadest and most comprehensive account of the Whiskey Rebellion ever written, taking into account the political, social and intellectual contexts of the time, but also challenges conventional understandings of the Revolutionary era.

Author Biography

Thomas P. Slaughter is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(6)
PART ONE: CONTEXT	9	(82)
One The Tax Man Cometh	11	(17)
Two The Quest for Frontier Autonomy	28	(18)
Three Sectional Strife	46	(15)
Four Lice, Labor, and Landscape	61	(14)
Five George Washington and the Western Country	75	(16)
PART TWO: CHRONOLOGY	91	(82)
Six Indians and the Excise	93	(16)
Seven Assembly and Proclamation	109	(16)
Eight Liberty, Order, and the Excise	125	(18)
Nine Alternative Perspectives	143	(15)
Ten Federalism Besieged	158	(15)
PART THREE: CONSEQUENCE	173	(49)
Eleven Rebellion	175	(15)
Twelve Response	190	(15)
Thirteen A Tale of Two Riots and a Watermelon Army	205	(17)
Conclusion	222	(7)
AFTERWORD	229	(4)
NOTES	233	(46)
INDEX	279