The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 22

what, they still had to pay the tax.
The tax schedules for a city, town, or village were nine to twenty-five
cents per gallon by proof, and if a distiller could pay quarterly, they received
discounts. The tax code charged country distillers sixty cents per gallon for still
capacity, or nine cents per gallon for production. A later act in 1792 reduced the
rates. If a still was less than four hundred gallons, it cost fifty-four cents per gallon
annually, ten cents per gallon per month in use, or seven cents per gallon produced.
Further amending the act was the Act of 1794, which allowed stills of one hundred
gallons or less to pay the monthly fee annually. 8
Opinions and Feelings
Pennsylvania’s people were no different from other states, and
Pennsylvania’s population saw a distinct division into two sections created by
wealth. The first group contained the old money landowners, merchants, and
manufacturer owners, who were proud of their heritage and birth. As the United
States expanded, the second set of people continued to increase, small farmers,
artisans, and new immigrants, all of whom were proud of being equal. This
growing sector of the population settled in the West because the existing people
already owned and operated everything for their own profit in the East, leaving no
room for newcomers. The Westerners said the reasons for their rebellion were
simply from a hatred of taxes, riding the tide of the popular anti-tax movement
from the Revolutionary War, and from the abundance of Scotch-Irish people who
now lived in the area. These Scotch-Irish immigrants came to America harboring a
tremendous hatred of the tax collector, and were the biggest instigators of the
Whiskey Rebellion. 9
The Whiskey Rebellion was essentially a regional rebellion. Because the
United States still had a decentralized federal government, as the Constitution was
relatively new, the local governments continued to take charge of situations that
arose. These people were also the ones responsible for the collection of taxes.
However, they did not support or enforce taxes because they benefitted from
positions of power. That is, until the federal government forced them to abide by
their positions under the threat of removal of their authority. 10 These leaders used
the Scotch-Irish’s natural hatred of the tax collector, and the popular sentiment
regarding taxes in general, and incited the public. They later claimed they were part
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