The Whiskey Rebellion showed that federal government would use force to implement and enforce policy. The Fries Rebellion was a semi-organized resistance to taxes. Eventually, several men were arrested and found guilty of treason; however, President John Adams pardoned the men. The federal government struggled with escalated reactions and defining the limits of democracy in addressing these “rebellions,” and how to assert control over states, and “The People,” without declaring war on fellow Americans in a country borne of discontent. Bouton posits that language differences between regions (English and German), caused Pennsylvanian resistance many organizational problems. This is arguable and likely not defendable. The language and communication problem would have been pre-existing. The presence of native, English, Scottish, Irish, German, French, and African (and Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch) peoples in the colonies created a creolized and multilingual population, and to some extent, communication negotiations would be normal. What other influences are at play in this divide? Bouton posits that Pennsylvanian regional differences and cultural practices influenced community agendas and escalated this division. However, he also assigns a level of complacency and assumption as variables, perhaps theory, that all of “The People” assumed that enough people held the same ideals and would join in the “movement.” The idea of disparate beliefs and agendas and ignorance of these beliefs and agendas is actually more plausible. The Pennsylvania elite controlling the political power base created a government in parallel to the federal actions. Eventually the federal and state governments did overturn some of the excessive taxing and regulations, but did not regress back to the pre 1776 notions of democracy supported by the ordinary…
