Effects Of The Whiskey Rebellion

After the Revolutionary War, the new nation had accumulated a tremendous amount of debt. Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist, disliked that the debt was so high, but did not want to pay it off completely. He thought that some debt was good for the country, but wanted to be able to pay the interest of the debt. Because of this, he proposed the Whiskey Tax, which would supposedly pay for the interest on the war debt. Once implemented, great problems arose that would lead to extreme conflicts between the newly created American government and the whiskey brewers, especially in western Pennsylvania. This conflict would be known as the Whiskey Rebellion, which lasted for a period of three years. This rebellion was very significant because it marked one of the first times that there was a major conflict within the union itself. It was also significant due to the fact that 13,000 militia from the union marched all the way to Western Pennsylvania, which caused the rebels to immediately step down due to being outnumbered. The government did this in order to prove that they would not take any protesting within the union over the new tax. It also showed that they were not a force to be reckoned with, as they would fight back in order to preserve the union and to collect taxes needed to operate.
Previously, taxation had been a significant issue with the colonists and Great Britain, and it was once again an issue within the United States government. The rebels argued that they were being unfairly taxed, much like the colonists once were. The United States government argued that unlike with the British, the government was taxing the people while representing them, not without representing them. Ultimately, the argument of the United States as a whole came out on top, and continues to do so to this