The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 24

were the oldest settlements. This feeling of entitlement was the cover speculators
used. The West disliked the idea of the assumption of war debts by the government,
because it was mostly speculator money. Moreover, the West believed that the
people who held the bonds had done nothing to deserve payment. 14 Many farmers
faced foreclosure on land, and prison for taxes, because the wealthy speculators in
the East bought the foreclosed land in West. This supported the Westerners’ view
that Easterners were greedy. The small farmers could not get loans from the state’s
bank, only speculators with access to gold and silver coin could, which resulted in
more foreclosures. Pennsylvania’s legislature had Westerners in the Assembly, who
forced the revocation of the bank’s charter, and refused to charter it again the next
session. However, the purchase of bonds to pay state debt was popular even among
the lesser rich, so speculation continued.
Westerners viewed themselves as part of a perfect democracy, and
demanded the government leave the farmers, artisans, and laborers alone, and
regulate the lawyers, bankers, and large landowners. Westerners wanted a land tax
because of eastern speculators who owed mortgages on most of the western lands,
which is where the extra cash of farmers went. The whiskey tax, said the
Westerners, was simply eastern money ruling the government. 15 The Easterners
accused those in the West of not pulling their weight in sharing the expense of
paying the government’s debt. What many Easterners failed to realize was that the
Westerners were usually among the first to pay their taxes. 16 That is, except the
whiskey tax.
The Insurrection
Post-Revolutionary War, the people who lived in western Pennsylvania
avoided foreclosures and tax collectors by crowd activities, which threatened local
agents into not doing anything. They blocked roads with items such as fences and
logs to keep judges and jurors from attending courts. Witnesses who testified
against tax evaders saw their barns burned, and distillers who paid their tax found
themselves tarred and feathered, and their stills destroyed. Men dressed as Indians,
women, and black-faced vigilantes tarred and feathered tax collectors, another
common occurrence. Likewise, landlords, who rented office space to the tax
collectors, saw their buildings destroyed. It was unfortunate, but the law required
the posting of the Offices of Inspection so people knew where to go to pay their tax.
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