Who Did This Excise Tax Affect?
The Man Behind the Excise Tax: Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary of the United States under the U.S. Constitution, sparked the excise tax on Whiskey to prove the U.S. government's new creditworthiness. From Hamilton's point of view, this internal direct taxation of citizens would establish the new government's authority over its citizens. Years before the Whiskey Rebellion began, Hamiton proposed a tax on Whiskey, but Congress delayed his idea because of widespread opposition to the tax, particularly from the farmers in the western frontier. But in 1791, the financial burden of the debt plan the United States adopted became too demanding, leading to Congress finally passing the tax on domestically distilled spirits.
The Reaction: The Backlash was entirely predictable after the excise tax was enforced; Excise taxes had long been hated and feared in America. "Hamilton and his allies in Congress defended the tax on whiskey as a tax on consumers. A Whiskey Tax would be good for public health, he argued" (Vanessa Williamson, P.6).1 Hamilton ignored the consumer argument and instead defended this excise tax by blaming it on the Consumers health as they drank a lot, and if they didn't want to pay, they should drink less.
Frontier Farmers and Democratic-Republicans: Understandably, the Western frontier resisted and strongly hated Hamilton's excise tax. "In Western Pennsylvania, farmers held public meetings, wrote petitions to Congress, and demanded a change of policy. The farmers did not just demand a tax cut, however. Instead, they made a consistent egalitarian critique of the regressive Hamiltonian "funding system," a term used to encompass Federalist tax, debt, and banking policies" (Vanessa Williamson, P.8).1 Western Pennsylvanians believed this excise tax was unjust and a violation of a Republican Government to convert the taxes of the poor into revenue to benefit the rich.
1Vanessa Williamson, "The Whiskey Rebellion and the Fight for Equal Taxation in Early America," Senior Fellow, January 9, 2020, https://taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/164031/frontier_tax_resisters_demand_more_progressive_taxation.pdf. Accessed November 26, 2024