Compare and Contrast the Whiskey Rebellion with Shay's Rebellion

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in western Massachusetts that run from 1786 to 1787. The rebels, led by Daniel Shays were small farmers angered by debilitating debt and taxes and failure to repay such debts often resulted in imprisonment in prisons. This was viewed by many as unjust, unfair and primarily favoring those with money. The levying of the taxes was orchestrated so as to put money back to the coffers after the American revolution. Those adversely affected were small scale subsistence farmers and because of this, many found it extremely difficult to feed and cloth their families. There was also the issue of the tax system. The tax system at this time was regressive in that much of the Eastern state economies lay in the barter system as opposed to the more monetary based economies found in the western and central parts of Massachusetts.

Consequently, many farmers were unable to meet their tax obligations and were forced to sell their lands so as to raise money. As a result , due to dire need orchestrated by the supply and demand dictates, the price of land depreciated and thus contributing to the cyclic nature of poverty. This often meant that men also lost their right to vote since suffrage was often tied to owning land. At the beginning, the rebellion was peaceful and centered mainly on freeing the men who had been jailed for not paying their taxes. This revolt becomes more militant on August 29, 1786. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the rebellion force on February 3, 1787.

In 1791, the government of the United States previously running under the Articles of Confederation had been replaced by a hands on, more effective government stipulated under the United States Constitution that had come into power in 1789 . The government took over the debts accumulated from the states from the American Revolutionary War. One stipulation to waiver the debts by the federal government was a tax on distilled spirits. Larger producers of beer were to be charged six cents a gallon whereas smaller producers were to be taxed a higher rate of nine cents a gallon.

The smaller producers were outraged by this because they lacked capital to sustain this and did not have the necessary tools to market their products which would generate income to cover the expense of the tax. Compounded by the lack of a well developed infrastructure to facilitate a well orchestrated production and distribution of beer, this made the taxes a difficult burden to bear for many.

Disgruntling and disgust reached the highest pitch in the summer of 1794 when civil protests manifested as an armed rebellion, when shots were fired in Pennsylvania about ten miles south of Pittsburgh. As word spread of the rebellion, small time farmers and their supporters enacted bodies of resistance which were geared to disrupt the tax collecting process and make day to day routines in the village intolerable.

George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, remembering Shays' Rebellion from just eight years before, decided to make Pennsylvania

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