This became known as the period in which the Whiskey Insurrection rose to life or better identified as the Whiskey Rebellion. This rebellion and many events prior to it would reform the United States government into the three branches that exist today with the ratification of the Constitution. At the same time it would cause the nation’s capital to be relocated as an attempt to join a divided nation and become the very first federal tax placed on any domestic product.
Having recently defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, the newly founded United States of America struggled in efforts to produce an equal balance on its stride to liberty and freedom of oppression from England. After the Revolution the United States chose to differ from …show more content…
After the Revolutionary War most of the country fell into a depression. Some states would even begin to implement hefty taxes as an effort to compensate for the remaining war debt. It even escalated to the point that anyone who had an outstanding debt would be thrown in jail and their land would be seized by the state banks. Many citizens would see these taxes to be unfair and would again question the legitimacy of the Revolutionary War with Britain. One citizen, a former captain by the name of Daniel Shays, had grown tired of a higher governing power that always had their hands in the people’s pockets. In order to protest this unwanted tax, Shays decide to assemble a small group of rebels to speak out. After a few months the battalion of rebels had been put to rest. They did, however, have some success in postponing some debt collections. With their capability to infiltrate and shut down court buildings whose main task was to handle foreclosures. Somehow, they even stopped authorities from auctioning off confiscated land, this was even more successful. These small insurrections did bring a light tax reliefs and drug out the debt collection a bit longer. With the new tax laws set in place by governing states, and citizens protesting these taxes, there were precautionary steps that needed to be taken in order to unify the …show more content…
The taxes to be collected were to be determined by the overall production of the whiskey still itself. If the collections came from distilleries in the west the tax percentage would practically double compared to collections taken from their eastern counterparts. Even the value of the whiskey itself would change almost in an opposite correlation to the tax placed on the specific region. Product in the west would sell for around fifty cents a gallon, but just on the other side of the mountains the same product would sell for one dollar a gallon. The tax on whiskey alone was not the only burden the people of the west had to carry. Taxing the stills based upon overall production required each one to be registered. Because the tax was so new and the tax offices that were set up by the government had not reached every county at this point. So many westerners just simply refused to make the journey which would make tax collection slightly more difficult. If somehow one was to be caught with tax evasion the only court that was eligible to try these lawbreakers was over in Philadelphia. The government implemented the tax so this would mean offenders would be tried by the federal court alone. Many could not bear the expenses it required to for the trek alone, nor the cost of good attorneys. Soon to follow were years of turmoil as the