Social Science Models

Washington's Presidency: Materials

As tensions rose over efforts to collect the tax, tax collectors were threatened and physically attacked. In July, 1794, shooting broke out between local and state militia after a eleven soldiers arrived to protect John Neville, a local citizen who was appointed as district tax supervisor. After casualties on both sides, the locals captured and later released the soldiers. Neville's home was burned. In August, 1794 five to seven thousand local militia men assembled and marched through Pittsburg to warn the citizens there to banish all people who might be aiding the effort to enforce the excise tax.

The description below provides an example of measures taken to discourage efforts to collect the tax:

    When state excise Officer William Graham appeared in Washington County to collect taxes on distilled beverages, he was awakened during the night by a disguised man who announced that the taxman was to be handed over "for torment to a legion of devils . . . waiting outside." Graham escaped, but the next day he was confronted by a crowd with blackened faces. Graham drew his pistols but did not fire. The crowd seized Graham's weapons and broke them into pieces. Others grabbed his official papers and tore them to shreds. Then, they ordered the excise man to stomp the scraps of paper and weapon fragments. Next, they told Graham to curse himself, his commission of office, and the politicians who gave it to him.

    The crowd cut the hair off one side of Graham's head. They braided the other half, cut a hole in the peak of his hat, and fixed it sideways on his head with the pigtail protruding from the hole. The protesters also dressed his horse "in such a manner as to disfigure" it, and then paraded Graham back and forth across the three frontier counties in which he was supposed to collect the excise. Graham was forced to go to the stills he had intended to visit in his official capacity, halting at each for a raucous ceremony and a "treat" of alcohol. At each stop they insulted Graham further and forced him to participate in the festivities. Participants in these events were never named or prosecuted.

Adapted from a longer account at: http://www.whiskeyrebellion.org/Chapt1.HTM