The Whiskey Rebellion

Author Brady Crytzer will take you through the events that fueled the second-largest domestic uprising in U.S. History when Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton excised a whisky tax to balance the American debt.

The Whiskey Rebellion stands as the second largest domestic rebellion in American history, only outdone by the Confederate States of America in 1861. In March 1791 Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton shocked the western frontier when he proposed a domestic excise tax on whiskey to balance America’s national debt. The law, known informally as the “Whiskey Act,” disproportionately penalized farmers in the backcountry, while offering favorable tax incentives designed to protect larger distillers. Hamilton viewed the law as a means of both collecting revenue and forcefully imposing federal authority over the notoriously defiant frontier settlers in Western Pennsylvania. These settlers bristled at its passage and demanded that the law be revoked or rewritten to correct its perceived injustices.  As the months passed, the people of Western Pennsylvania grew restless with the inadequacy of the government’s response, and they soon turned to more violent means of political expression.

This is a FREE event.

Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 1:00 pm.