In the year 1800 the U.S. federal government backtracked and abolished the regressive and tyrannical whiskey tax that was imposed by Hamilton a decade before. If we conclude that Hamilton behavior was tyrannical, the Whiskey rebellion could be portrayed as legitimate fight against tyranny the same way as Hamilton rebelled against England which portrays him as double standard politician.
Having stills that convert grains to liquid was a matter of survival and livelihood in the frontier. The government didn’t protect frontier families or pioneers against raids, climate hazards and didn’t give them sufficient representation. Effectively the whiskey tax was a devastating existential threat in the frontier whereas bigger stills in the populated areas could handle this tax. Big stills have an economical advantage of size, financing, technology, better transportation access and bigger consumer outreach. Stills in populated areas processed and sold liquor as luxury goods while the small stills in the frontiers processed the grains into liquor as sustainable nutrient and transactional mean that would enable their very survival during winter or times when crops can’t be stored for long times. Whiskey was the major product of frontier stills when compared to other alcohol beverages and was use as means for buying tools, ammunition and food needed to their survival.
Liquor was the means of storing and transporting nutrients in the frontier specially during long journeys, winters and isolated situations, fur hunt expeditions in remote areas. Elder and poor people that lived in the frontier had teeth problems as they were living far away from dental care. They consumed liquor as nutrients because alternative solid food was relatively expensive, difficult to chew, scarce and tended to rot after a week. In the frontier other food alternatives like diary, fruits and vegetables couldn’t be accessed in abundance and couldn’t be stored for longer periods than a week since sugar and salt that could help extend storage time was also scarce. The liquor was also a de-facto payment and savings method since the government failed to provide enough coinage and alternative methods of payment like or saving alternatives like banks.
Liquor also helped emotionally overcome pain, and stress reliever in places were the government didn’t help cope with illness, loneliness, anxiousness, dangers and economical instability. Liquor helps in treating injuries as a disinfection agent in places where doctors and medicine are not available. The liquor in the frontier should have been given for free by the government instead of taxing it the same way the government promotes the use of addictive soft drugs or weed as medication for pain and stress in many states. When the government taxes liquor in the frontier for low income pioneers disregarding their survival struggles and the use of liquor as medication, nutrient storage method or transactional substitution taxing it is tyrannical when compared to taxing liquor in the city. No frontier towns processed and sold liquor mostly as a luxury good. Regressive taxation makes the government illegitimate by definition because it doesn’t serve the people rather it empowers the elite and bureaucrats while exploiting the hard working citizens that are in a daily survival struggle caught in a endless loop that was manufactured by the elites for eternal domination purposes.
A tyrant and regressive tax on the frontier abuses the basic unalienable rights like the right to survive, the right to property the right to happiness and probable the trade clause. There is no happiness when the government imposes a tax that benefits one sector of the population and kills the livelihood of another sector or when the government doesn’t impose fair. An unfair taxation increases the power of the elite and increases the acquisition power gap between rich people and poor people. Taxing small frontier stills with the same amount of nominal money as a big still should be regarded a a moral blaspheming which disregards the bill of rights and mimics the tyrant taxation of the British empire that triggered the Boston tea party and the rebellion against the Sugar act in Rhode Island. The cancellation of the Whiskey tax after Hamilton’s tenure is a proof that the new government acknowledged it was a mistake or an aberration made by the previous regime.
Ironically, allegations claim George Washington was buying votes with Whiskey during elections. In retrospect, Washington who had his own merits, squashed the Whiskey rebellion but could have done better by not imposing it being the president and Hamilton’s boss.
Links:
The Hamilton Scheme (macmillan.com)
https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion#whiskey-tax-violence