Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 Today on an incomplete history, we'll be discussing several rebellions you may or may not have heard of. You might've heard of the whiskey rebellion and Shay's rebellion back in middle school or high school. But how much do you really know about them? Do you know that these two events fundamentally changed the way the nation was organized? The constitution, George Washington, his first president, none of these things may have happened without Shay's rebellion. And then the whiskey rebellion.
Speaker 1 00:25 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:45 hello and welcome to an incomplete history. I'm Hillary and I'm Jeff. Where are your hosts for this weekly history podcast? So good. Good evening, Hillary. Yeah, it's nighttime. It's nighttime. We're recording at nighttime. We have as a busy week, um, uh, you had a busy day today.
Speaker 3 01:03 I did. Um, my parents are visiting from California and so, um, I'm in Oxford, Mississippi. And so that's like Northern Mississippi. It's about an hour and a half away from Memphis. So we went up to Memphis for the day and we went to Graceland, the Elvis Presley house and museum. And it was insanely expensive, kind of a trip, but it was good. And then we had some barbecue and then we went to the largest bass pro shops in the United States along the Mississippi river. And, uh, that's like nothing, just went to look at it because I kept a single thing. Um, I bought some circus peanuts for my dad, for the drive home because he wanted him to eat circus,
Speaker 0 01:52 such a writ to random purchase in a bass pro shop.
Speaker 3 01:56 Well, because they have like these old candies there. And he saw those. I was like, Oh, I haven't had those in years. And so I was like, well, we'll get him for the ride home. So
Speaker 0 02:05 I mean, nothing for Davi and Jenny.
Speaker 3 02:07 No, I did see some stuff that I was interested in purchasing. I'm not gonna lie. There was a lot of camouflage and I felt, yeah,
Speaker 0 02:18 yeah. But you've been having issues with them getting lost in the woods. Like I don't, I don't know if you need to put cammo on them.
Speaker 3 02:27 That's true. That's true. So anyway, Oh, well now we're here together to talk about these aliens. How are you doing?
Speaker 0 02:36 I'm doing pretty well. Pretty well. Uh, it is hot as the blazes in Southern California where there a red flag warning. I didn't know whether the university was going to be closed down today cause they turned the power off to prevent a fire. Who knows, like to do this podcast with your eyes going in and out. Yes. Yes. Um, yeah. It's for those listeners who aren't aware, a Southern California, our hottest time of the year is right now. Um, yeah. A lot of my freshmen who are from other parts of the country are asking me, they're like, I didn't think it was supposed to get hot like this in San Diego. And I was like, Oh, well on October and early November can be pretty. Yeah.
Speaker 3 03:17 Yeah. I remember my sophomore year of high school, I'm the entire week of Halloween, the school was closed because the, that was during the, um, the 2003, the witch fire, I believe it was called and the entire week the school was closed and we didn't get to go and costume to school and everyone was really upset about it. But it was very Halloweeny because it was raining Ash.
Speaker 0 03:40 Right. Well to, so today we're talking about rebellions. Um, we're talking about two rebellions in particular. Um, how much did you know about these when you were in high school? I mean, the whiskey rebellion in Shay's rebellion.
Speaker 3 03:57 Yeah. I mean, I remember we covered them in AP us history, but it was cursory. And you know, I think the reason why these rebellions never stuck with me and why they maybe don't stick with people is because they're covered in such a perfunctory way. Like, well, this happen and it, I never felt like anybody tied it to something larger. And I, I'm excited for us to talk about this right now to really kind of delve into how important these moments were in the early moments of the United States. And it's not just a paragraph in your history book. I mean, it's, it's so important to understanding the early Republic. And, and I, I think that it just got glossed over. I don't, did you feel that way in high school or,
Speaker 0 04:41 uh, it did. I mean, the whiskey or the whiskey rebellion I think is covered a little bit more. I mean, at least when I first took U S history, I mean, I think what's really interesting about it is they kind of book end the constitution, right?
Speaker 3 04:59 Yeah. The start for chaise and yeah, the Edmond for whiskey.
Speaker 0 05:03 And I think that in itself makes them kind of important. But I, as we kind of get into some details today, I think hopefully the listeners will kind of see why historians my view these as really formative moments in the early Republic. Um, so let's jump right into Shay's rebellion. Uh, so Shay's rebellion, there's this great book that came out in the early two thousands, uh, by this historian named Leonard Richards. It's called Shay's rebellion. Uh, it came out 2003, I think, and he actually, the subtitle is that he calls it the final battle of the revolution. And I think that's important because what he gets to is what is the U S revolution actually about in his argument in the book, uh, which is pretty short and pretty readable for non historians. Um, the general public as well as useful for our stories is this idea that the revolution has multiple interpretations by people engaged in it, when it's actually happening and when it's over.
Speaker 0 06:14 People have to kind of figure out what did this really mean. And then N history, you've got kind of famous early American and revolutionary era historians like Gordon wood and Bernard Balen who kind of argue about this, right? As the revolution fundamentally, um, this kind of progressive moment, this raw, is it truly a revolution or is it largely a conservative movement? Uh, and it's funny because I think Richard's analysis of Shay's rebellion really leads us to conclude that was a fairly conservative change of government, right? Yeah, I think that that's fair to say. So Shay's rebellion happens a S late summer 1786 through early summer or late spring of 1787 and it's in emerges in Western Massachusetts. And after the revolution, a lot of people owed money. A lot of people owed money, a lot of States owed money, a lot of cities owed money, a lot of people owed money.
Speaker 0 07:24 And these people who live out in Western Massachusetts, uh, particularly when the Massachusetts state government starts to try to collect taxes, don't have anything to pay with, um, and they want kind of some kind of debt relief is really what they want. And a lot of them had fought in the revolution and a lot of them make the argument that we fought in the revolution. We were never really properly paid for that. Um, can you just relieve our debt because we can't pay these taxes? And the Massachusetts authorities kind of say, Nope, you have to. These are legitimate debts. You have to pay these. And it starts off with several people kind of marching on this courthouse and he kind of grows. And the largest force, um, ends up being about 4,000 or so total across Massachusetts. Some historians have said maybe about 1500 or so at any one place, but they kind of March in and they shut the courts down in Massachusetts for some time. And eventually the state says, enough's enough. They call out the militia, eventually appeal to the federal government, although should we call it the federal government at this point? I don't know.
Speaker 3 09:02 Well, no, I wouldn't say that yet.
Speaker 0 09:06 Um, I would say the Confederate government, right. And we're not talking about the Confederacy during the civil war. We're talking about the nation has constituted under the articles of Confederation and they actually appeal to the, um, U S military to come help with this. And, you know, the military comes and, and it's, there's no question of who's going to win this conflict, um, the army or these kind of protesters who've gathered together. But what's really interesting is this thing of the protestors, according to their interpretation of the revolution, have a legitimate gripe. The government is wrestling with how to deal with state debt that's accumulated during the war. They look at people on the coast, kind of coastal merchants, and say, look, they're making money. They've recovered from the war. We're still suffering out here in Western Massachusetts. And for them it seems like these people on the coast, um, and I would use the term coastal elites. That's really who, what they view them as our Def to the needs of people out in the Western Massachusetts and
Speaker 3 10:27 well, I think what's important here too though, is the people in Western Massachusetts, the person who the rebellion's named for Daniel Shays, I mean him and many others who are in debt shutting down the courts, fought during the revolution, right? Daniel Shays was a part of the continental army. He fought at the battle of bunker Hill. He fought the battles, Lexington, he fought at the battle of Saratoga and they weren't paid. And so they had just come off of, of terribly bloody and violent conflict for which they were not compensated properly. They're in massive debt and then they feel this newly consolidated government still shaky. Not quite federal government, but like you said, under the articles of Confederation, they're coming after them for money and they feel like they hadn't been compensated properly in the first place. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 0 11:22 Oh yeah. I mean that's definitely, it's Shay's and his followers view this is them discontinuing kind of the process of the revolution continuing what the revolution did, which was the revolution was meant to kind of dispense with distant governments that didn't really take into account what the people needed. Um, the early state constitution, well welcome, they're not constitutional is the early state guiding documents created during the American revolution. Really embrace this. They expand who's allowed to participate in government. A lot of them have no land owning requirement, which is truly revolutionary, right? This idea that you don't even need to know, but you don't even need to own land to participate in the government and Shay's rebellion happens. And what's so important about it is what happens in its weight. Richards and other argue, other historians argue we don't have the constitution in its present form. And even more so we don't get kind of these very conservative state constitutions without Shay's rebellion. So a lot of States put land requirements back into requirements to vote and participate in government.
Speaker 3 12:45 There is this argument that starts to surface very early on of who feels included and not included in government. And that's also predicated on why they fought in the revolution in the first place. Right? They, they didn't feel represented. Right. And so it's like they're not represented by the government they were fighting against and now they're feeling like they're not being represented properly and they don't really want to be represented by, um, UN federal government. Right. And this is where the, the conflict, the core conflict in this country, which starts at this moment and persists is we want to be left alone. Right? We, we don't want you bothering us. We're moving to these other areas. So
Speaker 0 13:33 no, I kind of kind of, they do. But do they really, because they also want the government to forgive that.
Speaker 3 13:39 So they're in this financial situation when they've returned from war and they don't, they do want the debt forgiven by the government, but I don't think that they feel that its property even have the debt levied at them in the first place. Right. Because there's this, there's this government that's forming that they, I think they don't, they're not fully and supportive in many ways, but that that would be unfair.
Speaker 0 14:09 Well, I mean, I think a deeper issue, a deeper anxiety that gets revealed during Shay's rebellion is this thing about how society was organized and deference, right? So deference was this idea that you were supposed to kind of Duffer, um, to people who were higher than you, socially, politically, whatever. And that meant just show them respect. Um, you know, and the inverse of that, which I think is really interesting, was called condescending. And it's not our modern take on condescending. It means condescending, you know, Oh, so-and-so, the state legislature condescended to talk to me. It wasn't that, it's not kind of a swarmy response. It's that it's this idea that, you know, differences between classes is very real. And if you are not kind of an elite, a ruling elite, you have to kind of wait till they speak to you before you can speak to them.
Speaker 0 15:15 And these things and deference really gets called into question during the war itself because the, the rebellion or the re the revolution seems to be an assault on deference. And I think that's where a lot of the people who support going after chaise and all these other protesters come down. So Sam Adams, um, staunch revolutionary during the war, right? Yeah. Plus maker of fine beer. I don't know. Um, could be, I mean, he says that Shay's and the other rebel should be strung up and blood should be shed. I mean, he's like, kill them. That's what he says. He's like, we've got to kill them. And even George Washington says that these are anything but virtuous yeoman.
Speaker 3 16:11 Right. I mean, because when they're rebelling against Britain, it's cool. But now that they're like, we're trying to create, right, you need them. No, they're trying to create their own government's like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Easy presence. I mean, yeah, that's kind of the, and that's what you're talking about with the elite situations. And this idea of deference is like you stay in your place when you must. And in this situation, things are shaky and they need, they need people falling in line with the new regime and, and any sort of misstep, anything outside of that line is a major threat to this really fragile state that, that the country finds itself in at this moment. It's, it's fragile. And I just, I think someone like Sam Adams who, yeah, he's this revolutionary for awhile. I mean, he also sees the importance of, uh, of consolidating the Republican falling into line in order to maintain stability and peace and allow for the formation of government and commerce. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 0 17:25 I mean, this is what founding father do you think supports the chaise EITs?
Speaker 3 17:32 Well, I mean, I think that this is really nascent. Maybe Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 0 17:38 Oh yeah. He's in Paris at the time. And he was like, yeah, you have to. This is where he famously says, look, you know, you got to water. The tree of Liberty was some blood every once in a way.
Speaker 3 17:47 Yeah. And, and this is where dumb, I mean the democratic Republican societies that start to form in the 1790s, um, particularly in the wake of the whiskey rebellion, um, they come out of this moment also of you and it's the Federalists versus anti-federalists. That's right.
Speaker 0 18:04 Do you know what the anti-federalists are called sometimes Shay sites? <inaudible> sites? Yeah. They're associated with this.
Speaker 3 18:13 Yeah, absolutely. And that's where you start to see. So it's confusing cause they're called so many different things. But the democratic Republican societies, the anti-federalists, the Shea sites, they're all a part of this more periphery. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, anti federal government, kind of nascent political party that develops in the 1790s. And it's all kinds of opposition forces and they're all in opposition to the government that's formed, right? So it's Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, the fiscal policies that are developed. It's, it's in opposition in speaking out against this, uh, this formation of strong central federal government.
Speaker 0 18:58 Right. Well, I think we're going to get, when we switched out to kind of talking about the whiskey rebellion before we get to that, is this idea that Shay's rebellion reveals this divide and a distrust between poor rural farmers and wealthy urbanize Bostonians, right?
Speaker 3 19:15 Yes. And this is a problem that plagues the United States from this moment forward. <inaudible> urban divide. Yes. Yes. The core versus the periphery.
Speaker 0 19:26 Right. And it's this idea that, I mean, for Shea sites, for people who follow Shea Shea's and kind of support what he's doing, they say that Washington is nothing, that Washington kind of becomes nothing but the strong arm of coastal merchants that this is coastal merchants who, Oh, who held a lot of the debts owed by these men. And Washington seems to be nothing but the strong honor of this elite. And some of them say, look, you've just changed what was a British aristocracy, the aristocracy with parliament to something else. But to us it seems the same.
Speaker 3 20:10 And it, it was too many of them because as a matter of fact, and taxes went up for a lot of these folks and they were even more expensive to be on your own. It is expensive and they're not only in debt, but they're being heavily taxed. And they're also not represented in government because there's not any sort of universal male suffered at this point.
Speaker 0 20:33 But it's easier before the rebellion for them to maybe be represented. I mean that's, don't you think there's the irony there that the rebellion actually makes universal white male suffrage, not a thing for us?
Speaker 3 20:46 Oh yeah. One it. And it's because of it, right?
Speaker 0 20:49 Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is the thing that they kind of feared would happen happens because of how they react. Punishment. Oh yeah. It's completely punishment. So you end up with these oil, right? So I'll end bef on with Shay's, with the oil, the loyalty oath. So they're kind of required to sign these loyalty oaths saying, Oh, we should never have done this. And this is why Richard's, this is kind of the great source he uses to construct this as he goes back through these loyalty oaths. But it's, you know, one of the first conflicts, armed conflicts, the new nation fights after independence is an internal conflict.
Speaker 3 21:32 Many of the things that they fight are internal conflicts and this is just the start of it,
Speaker 0 21:38 right? So let's move to the whiskey rebellion. So that's, that's kind of like when you want a type of whiskey and they don't have it, then you just rebel. Yeah. You just flip out
Speaker 3 21:50 whiskey shortage. So the, with your rebellions, it really, um, is a great segue because what you're talking about with the elite versus, you know, the, the urban rural divide, I mean it really comes to a head during this moment and it is in the wake of the constitution, right? So we're not under the articles of Confederation anymore. The federal government has been consolidated. Alexander Hamilton creates fiscal policy because as you said, again, this is a great segue. It's expensive to be on your own. And so how has the federal government going to be consolidated? How are they going to pay to be on their own? And they start loving taxes. And Congress approves in 1791 there's this vote that sharply divides the country. Congress approves an excise tax on distilled liquor and it's a part of secretary Hamilton's fiscal plans. It's important to remember that there's not paper money still at this time. I mean, it's, you know, money is, it's in its really nascent form. Um,
Speaker 0 23:12 well most of the colonists, even before revolution, most of the colonists weren't used to dealing with currency were there? No, it's
Speaker 3 23:18 a barter system. So, I mean, we're still, we're starting to move away from that a little bit at this time, but it's still a barter system. And whiskey is used as a barter and it's an item for sale in these cash poor regions. So taxing whiskey interferes with some of the most mundane exchanges you would see between ordinary farmers. As soon as the law goes into effect, these angry back country men start to rebel against it, the Washington administration starts to send out basically a little federal employees out to the back country, quote unquote. And I'm talking back country meaning like present day Pittsburgh, it's Western Pennsylvania. Um, he starts sending in people, um, tax collectors to start imposing this tax on. Uh, the folks living out in these regions, this, they are not well received. So between 1791 and 1794, there's minor skirmishes that continue to happen. In one such instance, there's a tax collector riding into town, um, men in the region dress up as women and come out to greet this man and they surround him on horseback, pull him off of the horseback and they tar and feather him and sure.
Speaker 0 24:39 So tarring and feathering to our modern ears. It sounds very funny. Right?
Speaker 3 24:44 And it sounds almost, yeah, it sounds comedian Tunis. Yeah. But the Jerry haha. It is, I can't imagine more pain. I mean, pouring hot tar on somebody will most likely kill them. I think it usually resulted in death because you're talking third degree burns all over the body. Um, with a hot sticky substance that melts your skin off.
Speaker 0 25:12 They do a really good job in the John Adams mini series showing tar and feathering.
Speaker 3 25:18 Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 0 25:20 I would just suggest to listeners if you want to see a pretty good depiction of what this probably looked like. Look at that John Adams mini series. That's the one with 'em.
Speaker 3 25:30 Paul Giamatti. Yes, that's right. So yeah, I do remember seeing that. And so tarring and feathering it. It does, it sounds sort of comical like you said to the modern ear, but it is serious, nasty torture death. It's dead. And so they're tarring and feathering these federal tax collectors who come into the region here and there. They would destroy houses and barns. They would set fire to houses and barns of anybody who was collecting taxes and anybody who was cooperating with the techs tax collecting effort. So if you had people who were your neighbors who were submitting to these federal taxes, they would go burn their houses down for complying. So this new federal government is trying to exercise some form of power, trying to consolidate the region and you have outright rebellion and it's sort of this carried over spirit of the revolution of wanting to just shirk any sort of power over over people.
Speaker 3 26:38 I think, and I mean you have this still this strong sense of wanting to be independent, not wanting to owe money, um, not wanting to be, it sounds childish, right? Not wanting to be told what to do, not wanting anybody or anything or any government or power or centralized force to exert control over the lives of a community. And so they're fighting it. And, and this is the interesting moment where the Washington administration has a choice. I mean, do they allow this rebellion to take place and allow, you know, somewhat of a revolution to continue? Or do they squash it and they just wash it? So the interesting thing I think is Shay's rebellion is kind of, huh? You look at it, um, there's not a lot of death or destruction. There's some destruction, but the whiskey rebellion seems like something much worse, right? Oh, it's way worse because it happens.
Speaker 3 27:48 It slowly boils, right? 1791 is when the excise taxes paths passed. It's not until 1794 that official rebellion is broken out. And Washington, the administration is faced with this hard line decision and they have to resort to violence because there's a continued resistance. And this continued resistance finally convinced his Washington that he needs to assemble an army and act and big army. So he assembled an army of 13,000 militia men. This is the same size of the continental army that defeated the British during the revolution, the same size army, 13,000 volunteers and militia men. And so they, there's a minimum of violence, right? Because if you see that number of trips and Washington leans of the troops, which is beautiful Ponting right? And that's the painting that we all see in our history book, him commanding the troops, because we don't see that there aren't any presidents who lead troops into battle, right.
Speaker 3 28:55 Washington is the one. And so we have lots of presidents who served in the military, but he is the only president who leads troops into battle as president, as commander in chief. That's right. And he leaves the arms here. No bone spurs. So he did. He takes this moment as like, we're not going to take this. We're, we're going to be a country by, gosh, you know, this is the really important moment in the country because it's a do or die situation. We came so close at so many moments in the 1790s to not being the United States. And this
Speaker 0 29:42 is one of those pivotal moments where there was a major decision made that that saved the country in a sense. And I get so pumped about it, but it's just like this, it blows your mind to think about what a tumultuous situation they were in. Right. Well, I think the interesting thing for me is that Washington, I mean this really is when the myth of Washington really starts to grow, right, is that he comes in with this massive army and he could of load these men down.
Speaker 3 30:14 Yeah, he doesn't, they restore peace without much violence. And that's also a cool moment. He's assembled this mouse of militia and he goes in and he could, you're right, he could completely destroy people and he doesn't, I mean he, he leads troops with the intention of bringing order and he doesn't want it to be a chaotic situation. And it, and it leads to more discussion of his heroism in a sense, because he's just, he becomes miss you. Like there's this mythology, nickel, uh, excuse me, mythological presence created by this, of, of him coming in and, and restoring order with minimal chaos. And, and that's kind of where I think a lot of reverence is built up. Even amongst some, you know, the anti-federalists, there's, there's a reverence for Washington, even amongst the crazy political strife and battles that take place, particularly amongst like Jefferson and Hamilton, right? I mean, they really don't like each other, but there's still, there's a reference, right? There's a reverence for George Washington and
Speaker 0 31:28 well, I mean, you have these parades, um, when he's in <inaudible> president and then when he, you know, making this trip to, to take the oath of office and stuff in there, people are just on everywhere. People love George Washington. Um, so I wanted to go back to, to you talking about the, the men dressed as women because I think this is part of something else that a lot of people don't really know goes on. And, and as historians, we joke about certain things because it's something we see all the time. So one of the jokes we make in history is if women start protesting food issues, let me wait just a minute until he gets done. So if women start protesting food issues, you know, it's about to get real,
Speaker 3 32:19 right? And that happens during the civil war,
Speaker 0 32:22 civil war. It happens right before the French revolution. I mean, when you have bread riots, food riots, something like that, it's usually women leading them. And there's this, you know, it's fairly obvious and then end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, why that may be because they're the ones who were kind of responsible at home for food. Um, so these men are dressed as women and it's part of this bigger regulator movement. And I don't think we talk enough about regulator movements, um, when we teach us history because it's so critical. I mean, the regulator movements and even regulator movements that are explicitly led by women, and a lot of them are, um, we're so critical in the early days of the revolution.
Speaker 5 33:14 Right,
Speaker 3 33:15 right. Um, I mean, what do you want to talk about specifically?
Speaker 0 33:17 Oh, well, I mean it's, so you talked about how they would like destroy the house and property of people who were cooperating with whiskey tax. I mean, the regulator movements, these women would go around and be like, Hey, Hillary, you're drinking tea out of kind of English imported China. What are you doing?
Speaker 3 33:38 Well, it's, yeah, I mean it's led by civilians. And in a way, it kind of goes back to our discussion about witches, um, where there was like civilians policing other civilians, right? I mean it's, it's kinda like spying on each other in a way,
Speaker 0 33:54 right? But this is how society operated, right? This is really how order was kept. If somebody was viewed as violating norms, societal norms, uh, communal norms or, or laws, the regulator movements could really kind of bring them back in line. And, and Shay's and his followers definitely saw themselves as part of the regulator movement. They were like, this is perfectly legitimate what we're doing. And I think the whiskey rebellion, um, protesters felt the same way is that they, you know, the government has gone too far.
Speaker 3 34:30 Well, and they had gotten away with it so many times. And I don't mean gotten a, I don't mean they got away with it in the sense that it was something terribly wrong, but just like it was all in the spirit of the era, there were multiple moments during this era where people were fighting back against government Xs and some things were called revolution and others were called rebellion. And there's a fine line there, right? We don't call it the revolution, the whiskey revolution, we call it the rebellion, right? And it's just about how we perceive it as historians busted or insurrection. Right? And I mean, whereas there are different moments, right? Like the tea party or something. I mean, that's a rebellion. But we, we considered an act of revolution. And so you have to think about people living in that moment and how they perceive their own actions.
Speaker 3 35:24 And I don't think that they saw themselves as being rebels or causing a major problem, but they just saw themselves acting within the spirit of the moment. Like, well, this is just what we're doing. This the revolutionary spirit. We're encapsulating the feelings of an era and the way that we, you know, we're just doing what we've been doing for the last 10, 15 years, right? We've been fighting up against government Xs. And at a certain point though, they have the newly formed federal government has to say, enough revolution is over. We're moving into a new era of building government, a new government. And a lot of people are like, eh, it's not that new. And that kind of circles back to what you first started talking about is, is it really a revolution or is it more of a conservative movement? Right? I mean, and, and I think that you just still have people who are caught up in that revolutionary spirit and their ha has to come to an end at a certain point because they can't keep having these acts of revolution without being answered too. Right.
Speaker 0 36:39 Well, I mean, ultimately the sovereignty of the government has to be recognized for the state to kind of move on and do what it needs to do. Right. They can't keep rehashing this. I mean, the interesting thing is this, the whiskey tax ended up getting repealed ultimately though, right?
Speaker 3 36:54 Right. And, and it, because it was proportionately affecting by Jefferson
Speaker 0 37:02 surprise. Right? Here we go. Here's the guy who said the Shea sites were doing something that was good. Here he comes and he says, you know, the whiskey taxes is not right
Speaker 3 37:13 because it's taxing people who, who shouldn't be being taxed. I mean, cause the thing with the whiskey techs too, not to get too technical about the math of it or whatever, but it was disproportionally affecting small distillers and back country distillers because folks who were producing it in mass production, I think there were tax like 9 cents. Um, and people who are <inaudible> who are producing it in smaller batches, they were producing much smaller amounts but at 6 cents. And so it was costing them a lot more money for their small batches than like say one large batch that went out. So it was disproportionately affecting people who had the least amount of money to give. And I think Jefferson was always sympathetic to those back country, so to speak. People.
Speaker 0 38:10 Right. I mean, so the interesting thing is under the old articles of Confederation, the federal government couldn't have done this
Speaker 3 38:18 no taxes. Right? Absolutely. And so it's the first moment really where they are starting to levy taxes under Hamilton's new fiscal plan, which was highly controversial and people aren't happy with it. People aren't happy with the new constitution. Everybody's for it. And so this is one of those moments where we just see people going, ah, we're not pumped about this and we're going to continue re rebelling and, and you know, having these moments of revolution to try to say, this isn't what we want. And, and eventually again, it just, they have to say enough, no, we are doing this. This is the country. It's expensive to be on your own. We need the money. But you know, because of these nascent political parties that develop the anti-federalists democratic Republicans, they come in and say, we're repealing this tax. Right.
Speaker 0 39:19 Well, I mean, but Hamilton also gets support of social or farmers, right?
Speaker 3 39:23 Yes. Oh, well, sure. Because they, they think it's great. Of course are taxing alcohol. That's fantastic. Yeah.
Speaker 0 39:32 Particularly hard alcohol, right? They're like, we need a tax whiskey. I mean, I'd love to get more into a conversation about alcohol in the early Republicans. Who knows of you. Who, for those of you who think you've seen extreme drinking, eventually we'll do an episode where we talk about how much the average colonial American drank throughout the day, which is a mind numbing. You're drunk all the time. Yes. Basically the declaration of independence, the constitution, they were all written by highly inebriated individuals. Um, it's surprising they did anything. Yes. So, so any last comments on the rebellions here, the, the whiskey rebellion in Shay's rebellion?
Speaker 3 40:17 Well, I think I, I'm excited by it. I'm excited by the era. I see so many, uh, parallels to two problems that we have throughout history at different moments. Right? So if you teach the survey courses in us history and you're teaching about this in class, like talking about these rebellions is so important for scaffolding the United States. So important for scaffolding, like the spirit of the country, the culture, uh, some of the problems that exist at that moment and then again and again and again and again. And so if you get a good foundational understanding of these rebellions and why they happened and why they're important, you can understand a lot about the history of this country just by exploring the 1790s, but by exploring these two moments because they really do shape so much of co of the conflicts that continually occur in the decades and centuries to come.
Speaker 0 41:26 Yeah. I mean the urban rural divide is still with us today, right? Politically there's a huge difference between the two. Um, culturally there seems to be a lot of animosity between the two regions. Um, very different.
Speaker 3 41:43 Well, we've never been this divided before. The 1790s, man. They, I would say was like the height of it except for, of course the civil war, but like civil war, right? What can two minutes for war, I would say,
Speaker 0 41:58 yeah. When people say, we've never been this divided, I'm like, well first we out of civil war, which is really divided, we're divided 750 million. Our 750,000 dad, I'm not billion. Huh? It's a high estimate. I know that. I think it's a good estimate though. Um, it's definitely not 750 million. Uh, let me make that clear. No, 750,000. Right? Yeah. Hello. Um, but I mean, yes, it's still there. Even today you hear about it, right? I mean, culturally think about where we think kind of moral correctness comes from. Some come from the cities or the countryside. Most people, even if they don't want to say it, say, Oh, the countrysides probably more morally upright than the city. Um, and a lot of that kind of plays out in these rebellions. Um, well thanks. I mean, we could talk for a long time about this. I'm just looking at my notes and like so many things I wanted to talk about with like all of both of these and like how they change the conversation for the constitution. But um,
Speaker 3 43:22 well actually what we did today, I think what we did today though is good because it does, it lays the foundation for future episodes too, to kind of look back on this and say, look at this as this foundational moment and we can continue to come back to this. And we also laid out an agenda for discussing drunkenness. So I mean,
Speaker 0 43:42 which is awesome. Like, um, great. Well thank you so much Hillary. Uh, this has been a great conversation today. Um, join us every week for a brand new episode of an incomplete history. If you have, if you like our show and you haven't rated or reviewed us on Apple podcast, please do so. Uh, you can follow us there. Subscribe to the podcast as well as Spotify or wherever you might find your podcasts. Additionally, you can go to our website, an incomplete history.com. There. You can find more information as well as a place where you can get spit comments and questions. Uh, we're definitely going to be doing a Q and a special edition at some point in the near future. Get your questions and we'll try and address as many as we possibly can. Um, that's it for today. My name's Jeff, and thanks for tuning into an incomplete history.
