Drunk in Defiance: Reflections on the Whiskey Rebellion

The regulation of American life now dominates the decision-making of the individual in every sphere; his choices regarding his own health, education, business, housing, and "sins" are increasingly pre-determined by the state. It is in regards to the regulation of "sins" that we can see a fatal overlap between the political left and right and the entry-point for virtually unopposed statism.

The defenders of freedom in the United States have nearly always been out-flanked by secular worshipers of the God-state on one side and the "religious right" who claim to act for God on the other. The first instance of alcohol taxation in the United States in the first regard, and the well-known case of Prohibition in the latter, is an excellent way to elucidate this point.

The initial move to tax and therefore regulate alcohol in the United States did not come from a fire-breathing Baptist or a lofty sermonizing Lutheran. Instead it came from America's first pre-eminent statist: Alexander Hamilton.

In 1790, Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton addressed a joint session of Congress in Philadelphia. According to historian Robert Remini in The House: The History of the House of Representatives:

Congress finally got down to business when Secretary Hamilton recommended the establishment of a national bank - "the lynchpin of his entire program," according to one historian - to provide sound credit and currency in the country [a brazen non-sequitur], and passage of an excise tax on imported spirits and domestic liquor stills to ease the burden created by the assumption of state debts. In an instant, there was opposition. Fisher Ames recognized that "the southern people dread" the excise and contend that it "is an odious, unpopular tax, and will fall unequally on them. They are afraid for their Whiskey." But southerners were not alone in the dislike of an excise tax. There were thousands of stills all over the country, and James Jackson of Georgia vehemently insisted that his constituents claimed "a right to get drunk, that they have been long in the habit of getting drunk, and that they will get drunk in defiance of all the excise duties which Congress might be weak or wicked enough to impose." (48-49)

Thus those who sought to grow their own grain and distill it into liquor for interstate commerce were nearly from the beginning of the Republic confronted by a confiscatory state. Robert Remini continues on the formation of this revolt over the excise tax on the sale of liquor proposed by Hamilton:

Despite the opposition and after a protracted debate, the bill passed the House on January 27, 1791, by a large majority, 35 to 21. As expected, this tax proved to be very unpopular, especially among the farmers in western Pennsylvania who were accustomed to shipping this surplus grain to eastern markets in liquid form as whiskey. So they refused to pay the tax and attacked the federal revenue officers who tried to collect it. Frightened that this might become another Shays Rebellion, which occurred in Massachusetts in 1786 and led to the overthrow of the government, President Washington overreacted and in 1794 sent some thirteen thousand millitiamen to crush the uprising. This so-called Whiskey Rebellion dissolved upon the arrival of the troops, but it had the excellent effect of reaffirming the authority of the central government [this is a typical state-adoring comment from a modern "historian"; emphasis added] (acting with the support of the state militia), something that had to be visibly demonstrated sooner or later. It proved that the administration had the will and power to enforce the government's [unjust] laws." (49-50)

Washington's "Whiskey Rebellion Proclamation" made it clear that he was not simply reacting to opposition to a tax, but to the violent assault of federal tax collectors. As one website put it, "This was the first use of the Militia Law of 1792 setting a precedent for the use of the militia to 'execute the laws of the union, (and) suppress insurrections,' asserting the right of the national government to enforce order in one state with troops raised in other states." This is an important lesson for anyone contemplating a tax revolt in defiance of unconstitutional federal budget expenditures. Though I am not suggesting that someone who is assaulted by an agent of the government should not defend himself and his family, one must be absolutely sure never to initiate or provoke violence. It is important to recall that the excessive violence of the British in the Boston Massacre, along with the positive act of the Boston Tea Party, would prove crucial for mobilizing sympathy for the rebels, and was a key facilitator of the American Revolution.

From the taxation of alcohol in the Whiskey Rebellion to the severe constriction of alcohol consumption during Prohibition, both an abuse of the Interstate Commerce clause (the latter underwritten with the moral authority of the religious Temperance movement), we can see that individual freedom has been constricted by both the political left and right, and sometimes both at the same time.

The important thing for religious people to remember about freedom is that God gave men free will to lead their own lives; and if one's behavior does not interfere with another's, then he has the right to "sin" [but not violate the law] under our Constitution. Thus though Corinthians indicates that "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (6:19) Christians are not the agents of God on earth, to regulate the behavior of others and to forcibly forbade them of "sins." It is up to each man and his own conscience to determine his own destiny; this right of free conscience is irrevocable.