The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 23

of the rioting to calm down the distillers who terrorized tax collectors. 11
There were three groups involved in the events that led to the Whiskey
Rebellion. The first group contained the elite economic and political leaders of the
West, the distillers. Since the whiskey tax affected them directly, they swayed the
protests. The area’s elected and appointed leaders were the ones who gathered in
Pittsburgh for the meetings in September 1791 and August 1792, which led to the
resolution that so incited President Washington. The militiamen formed the second
group. These military-minded men could reprimand the tax collector, and through
their actions, they supported protesters. 12 Ultimately, the reason for the rebellion
was the third and largest group, the general public. The leaders took their cue from
the public, who felt they still had a right to demand a choice and have a say in the
governing.
West Versus East
The commoners in the West knew about important events before their mail
arrived. Politics moved with the wagon trains that crossed the state carrying whiskey
and furs. These people were not stupid, as is so often believed. Even graduates of
Princeton found themselves in western Pennsylvania for a chance to make it big.
People like Hugh Brackenridge, a western lawyer and a leader of the rebellion, did
not have the opportunity to become rich and famous in the East. The West offered
this chance. The major religions for those who lived in the western frontier, the
Presbyterians and Episcopalians, required their religious leaders to hold an
education. The common people also demanded and built academies for their
children to attend. The literacy rate in western Pennsylvania was sixty-five percent.
This was impressive given that England’s was sixty percent, and France’s was only
fifty percent. 13
Easterners called the people who lived in western Pennsylvania stupid
because many only had the minimal creature comforts, such as homespun clothes,
and wooden dishes, not china. Instead of multicourse meals with a variety of
ingredients brought in through coastal trade similar to what the Easterners had, the
people in the western counties ate corn meal, pork, game, some vegetables, and wild
berries. The townsfolk and gentlemen farmers had as much as their cohorts in the
East, but the East saw the Westerners as all the same.
The East had a definite hierarchy of landlords and tenants, and wanted to
keep its power. After all, they postured, the federal government was there, and they
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