The "Whiskey Rebellion," as Alexander Hamilton called it, was the first major test of the new government's power to control its territory. The Whiskey Tax of 1791 taxed smaller producers of whiskey, and required all stills to be registered. The response of farmers in the west--many of them veterans of the Revolution--was at times violent, and President Washington responded by leading an army of 13,000 men--mocked at the "watermelon army"-- to subdue the rebellion. We talk about this story with Brady Crytzer, author of The Whiskey Rebellion; A Distilled History of an American Crisis.
The "Whiskey Rebellion," as Alexander Hamilton called it, was the first major test of the new government's power to control its territory. The Whiskey Tax of 1791 taxed smaller producers of whiskey, and required all stills to be registered. The response of farmers in the west--many of them veterans of the Revolution--was at times violent, and President Washington responded by leading an army of 13,000 men--mocked at the "watermelon army"-- to subdue the rebellion. We talk about this story with Brady Crytzer, author of The Whiskey Rebellion; A Distilled History of an American Crisis.
WEBVTT
00:00:00.236 --> 00:00:05.139
yeah please hello everyone
00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:06.381
welcome to the revolution
00:00:06.381 --> 00:00:08.301
250 podcast I am bob
00:00:08.381 --> 00:00:10.544
allison I chair the rev 250
00:00:10.544 --> 00:00:11.564
advisory group we are a
00:00:11.603 --> 00:00:13.646
consortium of about 70 plus
00:00:13.686 --> 00:00:14.766
groups in massachusetts
00:00:15.227 --> 00:00:15.887
planning ways to
00:00:15.928 --> 00:00:16.827
commemorate the beginnings
00:00:16.847 --> 00:00:17.969
of american independence
00:00:18.449 --> 00:00:19.670
and our guest today is
00:00:19.730 --> 00:00:20.931
brady kreitzer brady
00:00:20.971 --> 00:00:22.832
kreitzer teaches history at
00:00:22.873 --> 00:00:24.513
robert morris university
00:00:24.754 --> 00:00:25.995
and he is an historian of
00:00:26.035 --> 00:00:27.115
the american frontier
00:00:27.155 --> 00:00:28.676
probably one of the leading historians of
00:00:29.126 --> 00:00:30.849
pennsylvania history and
00:00:30.888 --> 00:00:32.030
pennsylvania's military
00:00:32.090 --> 00:00:33.692
history he's the author of
00:00:33.771 --> 00:00:35.372
battlefield pennsylvania
00:00:35.453 --> 00:00:37.234
which was what goes along
00:00:37.314 --> 00:00:39.216
with a series of series you
00:00:39.237 --> 00:00:40.317
did for pennsylvania's
00:00:40.378 --> 00:00:42.219
public broadcasting network
00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:43.481
on pennsylvania
00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:44.743
battlefields and he wrote a
00:00:45.003 --> 00:00:46.725
book about fort pitt as
00:00:46.784 --> 00:00:48.026
well as a book about major
00:00:48.106 --> 00:00:49.847
washington's pittsburgh and
00:00:50.686 --> 00:00:52.627
where actually Gaya Sutta
00:00:52.707 --> 00:00:54.768
and the fall of Indian America.
00:00:55.427 --> 00:00:56.328
We're really here to talk, though,
00:00:56.368 --> 00:00:57.347
about your latest book,
00:00:57.408 --> 00:00:58.929
which is The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:00:58.988 --> 00:01:00.348
a distilled history of an
00:01:00.389 --> 00:01:01.209
American crisis.
00:01:01.228 --> 00:01:02.448
So, Brady, thanks for joining us.
00:01:03.069 --> 00:01:03.529
Thanks, Bob.
00:01:03.548 --> 00:01:04.349
Thank you for having me.
00:01:05.430 --> 00:01:06.469
So The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:01:06.790 --> 00:01:07.829
it's one of those things
00:01:07.989 --> 00:01:08.989
everyone knows happened,
00:01:09.030 --> 00:01:10.411
but no one knows much else.
00:01:10.450 --> 00:01:11.870
And your book really does
00:01:12.290 --> 00:01:13.611
tell the story and makes us
00:01:13.631 --> 00:01:15.132
see why it is important.
00:01:15.171 --> 00:01:15.292
Now,
00:01:15.352 --> 00:01:16.572
what brought you to the story of The
00:01:16.591 --> 00:01:17.272
Whiskey Rebellion?
00:01:19.346 --> 00:01:19.865
Bob, you know,
00:01:20.325 --> 00:01:22.326
it's a really challenging story.
00:01:23.147 --> 00:01:24.468
I live on a piece of
00:01:24.528 --> 00:01:25.888
property that borders the
00:01:25.948 --> 00:01:27.108
property of one of the men
00:01:27.168 --> 00:01:29.090
that was actually arrested
00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:30.870
for his participation in the event.
00:01:31.771 --> 00:01:32.771
And I think a lot of people
00:01:32.811 --> 00:01:33.912
in Western Pennsylvania
00:01:34.331 --> 00:01:35.852
could probably say that and
00:01:35.912 --> 00:01:36.692
not realize it.
00:01:36.793 --> 00:01:39.614
So it's a book that's very complicated.
00:01:40.534 --> 00:01:42.795
It's been misunderstood, I think,
00:01:42.834 --> 00:01:43.875
throughout the last 230 years as
00:01:45.415 --> 00:01:46.656
maybe an epilogue to the
00:01:46.697 --> 00:01:48.117
American Revolution or a
00:01:48.558 --> 00:01:49.799
bookend of some kind.
00:01:49.900 --> 00:01:51.581
But it's really an insight
00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:53.042
into the early republic.
00:01:53.862 --> 00:01:55.164
And it challenges us.
00:01:55.243 --> 00:01:55.483
I mean,
00:01:55.584 --> 00:01:57.165
all of the men who participate in
00:01:57.204 --> 00:01:59.527
the uprising are patriot veterans,
00:02:00.266 --> 00:02:01.507
and we celebrate them for that.
00:02:01.628 --> 00:02:03.209
But just 10 years later,
00:02:03.250 --> 00:02:05.350
they're trying to dismantle
00:02:05.391 --> 00:02:07.233
the republic in a secessionist movement.
00:02:07.293 --> 00:02:09.394
So there must be some messiness there.
00:02:09.875 --> 00:02:10.835
And I think I felt
00:02:11.175 --> 00:02:12.317
comfortable jumping into it
00:02:12.377 --> 00:02:13.997
to sort it out for people.
00:02:14.537 --> 00:02:14.637
Yeah,
00:02:14.657 --> 00:02:16.199
there's a great deal of messiness in
00:02:16.218 --> 00:02:17.139
it because you do have
00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:19.201
these people who had been
00:02:19.241 --> 00:02:19.962
on the same side.
00:02:19.983 --> 00:02:21.183
But they have kind of a
00:02:21.204 --> 00:02:22.004
somewhat different idea
00:02:22.145 --> 00:02:24.627
about what the republic was
00:02:24.768 --> 00:02:25.889
and what their powers were
00:02:25.949 --> 00:02:26.750
under the republic.
00:02:26.789 --> 00:02:29.312
You had this government in Philadelphia.
00:02:29.793 --> 00:02:30.933
One of the things I kept thinking,
00:02:31.133 --> 00:02:32.936
Alexander Hamilton looms large in this.
00:02:33.637 --> 00:02:34.657
And I don't remember a song
00:02:34.698 --> 00:02:36.780
about the Whiskey Rebellion in the music.
00:02:38.330 --> 00:02:39.731
so so they mentioned they
00:02:39.771 --> 00:02:40.752
mentioned the word whiskey
00:02:40.853 --> 00:02:42.013
one time in that musical
00:02:42.073 --> 00:02:43.294
and I think for for good
00:02:43.354 --> 00:02:44.974
reason it's he doesn't come
00:02:45.034 --> 00:02:46.555
out of that looking I think
00:02:46.594 --> 00:02:47.415
like the way they might
00:02:47.436 --> 00:02:48.695
want to portray him in that
00:02:49.135 --> 00:02:50.616
in that series but that's
00:02:50.637 --> 00:02:52.198
history right that's right
00:02:52.237 --> 00:02:53.679
yeah and there's some other
00:02:53.859 --> 00:02:55.239
fascinating characters in
00:02:55.258 --> 00:02:56.580
this both major characters
00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:57.920
as well as minor characters
00:02:57.941 --> 00:02:58.480
like one of the most
00:02:58.540 --> 00:02:59.782
interesting is herman husband
00:03:01.623 --> 00:03:01.843
Yeah,
00:03:01.883 --> 00:03:03.906
Herman Husband is one of these people
00:03:03.925 --> 00:03:06.207
that really shows how much
00:03:06.268 --> 00:03:07.949
work we still have to do on
00:03:07.969 --> 00:03:08.950
the Whiskey Rebellion.
00:03:09.670 --> 00:03:10.532
The Whiskey Rebellion was
00:03:10.572 --> 00:03:12.973
divided into really three
00:03:13.054 --> 00:03:13.854
sects of people.
00:03:14.616 --> 00:03:15.776
There were the moderates,
00:03:15.856 --> 00:03:17.157
people like Albert Gallatin,
00:03:17.677 --> 00:03:19.799
the extremists that turned to violence,
00:03:19.899 --> 00:03:21.618
people like David Bradford.
00:03:22.299 --> 00:03:23.558
And there were these sort of
00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:26.800
apocalyptic end time types
00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:28.621
like Herman Husband who
00:03:28.681 --> 00:03:30.800
believed that as foretold
00:03:30.841 --> 00:03:32.020
in the book of Revelation,
00:03:32.441 --> 00:03:33.442
the world was ending and
00:03:33.461 --> 00:03:34.562
the Whiskey Rebellion was
00:03:34.622 --> 00:03:35.502
how it would happen.
00:03:36.021 --> 00:03:37.222
And he lived like a hermit
00:03:37.262 --> 00:03:39.122
on top of a mountain in the
00:03:39.163 --> 00:03:39.983
wilderness and he had
00:03:40.022 --> 00:03:41.782
followers and they all kind
00:03:41.823 --> 00:03:43.084
of coalesced in this one event.
00:03:43.104 --> 00:03:44.044
It's really unusual.
00:03:44.679 --> 00:03:45.400
It's extraordinary,
00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:46.961
and he's preaching about
00:03:46.981 --> 00:03:51.105
the New Jerusalem, and it's fascinating.
00:03:51.627 --> 00:03:52.487
The way you bring these
00:03:52.527 --> 00:03:53.489
characters to life is
00:03:53.508 --> 00:03:54.849
really great in the book.
00:03:56.292 --> 00:03:56.912
Why don't we just tell a
00:03:56.931 --> 00:03:59.495
little bit about why whiskey?
00:03:59.555 --> 00:04:00.455
Was it about whiskey,
00:04:00.616 --> 00:04:02.277
and what provokes this?
00:04:03.699 --> 00:04:03.840
The...
00:04:05.288 --> 00:04:06.608
whiskey rebellion you know
00:04:06.627 --> 00:04:07.408
was never called the
00:04:07.449 --> 00:04:08.628
whiskey rebellion in its
00:04:08.709 --> 00:04:09.808
own time it was always
00:04:09.868 --> 00:04:11.330
called the western
00:04:11.389 --> 00:04:13.110
insurrection which makes
00:04:13.169 --> 00:04:14.971
the stakes much higher um
00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:16.130
but the reason whiskey
00:04:16.170 --> 00:04:17.211
comes to the forefront is
00:04:17.250 --> 00:04:19.651
because in the 1790s
00:04:19.932 --> 00:04:21.093
president washington had a
00:04:21.153 --> 00:04:22.632
very real concern that
00:04:23.132 --> 00:04:24.834
america was really dividing
00:04:24.934 --> 00:04:26.394
into two different
00:04:26.434 --> 00:04:27.713
countries and they were
00:04:27.774 --> 00:04:29.115
physically divided between
00:04:29.175 --> 00:04:30.935
east and west and the
00:04:30.995 --> 00:04:33.055
appellations were the division um
00:04:33.771 --> 00:04:34.773
He knew that people in the
00:04:34.853 --> 00:04:36.713
East respected American sovereignty.
00:04:36.793 --> 00:04:38.136
He knew that they respected
00:04:38.175 --> 00:04:39.055
the Constitution.
00:04:39.096 --> 00:04:40.297
But in the West,
00:04:40.437 --> 00:04:41.398
there wasn't a real
00:04:41.478 --> 00:04:42.918
connection to people beyond
00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:44.040
the Appalachian Mountains.
00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:46.442
His fear was that they would
00:04:46.622 --> 00:04:47.543
attach themselves more
00:04:47.583 --> 00:04:49.685
towards Spain on the Ohio
00:04:49.745 --> 00:04:50.665
and Mississippi rivers.
00:04:51.245 --> 00:04:52.567
Spain was paying some of the
00:04:52.607 --> 00:04:54.208
people out West, too, to be more honest.
00:04:54.288 --> 00:04:54.848
Absolutely.
00:04:55.310 --> 00:04:56.870
I mean, it was cheaper to ship goods.
00:04:56.930 --> 00:04:58.711
People have trouble visualizing this,
00:04:58.750 --> 00:04:59.911
but it was cheaper to ship
00:04:59.930 --> 00:05:02.230
goods from Philadelphia to
00:05:02.290 --> 00:05:03.971
London than it was from, say,
00:05:04.031 --> 00:05:05.872
Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, much cheaper.
00:05:07.192 --> 00:05:08.213
So they would send these
00:05:08.252 --> 00:05:09.653
goods down the river and
00:05:09.692 --> 00:05:10.853
they'd end up in New Orleans.
00:05:10.913 --> 00:05:11.932
And it was a lucrative
00:05:11.952 --> 00:05:13.252
relationship there when
00:05:13.293 --> 00:05:14.194
times were good between
00:05:14.254 --> 00:05:15.194
Spain and America.
00:05:15.814 --> 00:05:17.494
So it was Alexander Hamilton
00:05:17.514 --> 00:05:19.595
that believed that the way
00:05:19.634 --> 00:05:20.774
you unify people
00:05:21.274 --> 00:05:22.858
and I always get a laugh out of this,
00:05:22.918 --> 00:05:24.439
but is through taxation.
00:05:25.622 --> 00:05:28.285
If you have to pay your tax to someone,
00:05:28.586 --> 00:05:29.226
to a government,
00:05:29.627 --> 00:05:30.788
then you'll inherently
00:05:30.988 --> 00:05:32.630
recognize their sovereignty over you.
00:05:33.886 --> 00:05:35.105
And whiskey was the primary
00:05:35.165 --> 00:05:36.346
produce of the West.
00:05:37.086 --> 00:05:39.987
Corn, rye made a very fine whiskey.
00:05:40.026 --> 00:05:40.947
They made a lot of it.
00:05:41.367 --> 00:05:43.048
It was the center of their economy.
00:05:43.687 --> 00:05:44.947
So in 1790,
00:05:44.947 --> 00:05:47.288
Hamilton creates an excise tax.
00:05:47.348 --> 00:05:48.988
That's a tax on domestically
00:05:49.028 --> 00:05:49.588
produced good.
00:05:50.430 --> 00:05:51.170
And it's on whiskey.
00:05:51.189 --> 00:05:52.189
And it's the first time ever
00:05:52.209 --> 00:05:53.029
in American history.
00:05:53.629 --> 00:05:54.970
He would say it was done to
00:05:55.230 --> 00:05:58.211
unify the country, but Western farmers,
00:05:58.591 --> 00:05:59.511
and this is true from
00:05:59.891 --> 00:06:00.951
Pennsylvania through North
00:06:01.012 --> 00:06:01.891
and South Carolina,
00:06:02.572 --> 00:06:04.012
uh kentucky they saw it as
00:06:04.052 --> 00:06:05.334
an inherent infringement of
00:06:05.374 --> 00:06:06.894
their rights right right
00:06:07.596 --> 00:06:09.057
and so he imposes the tax
00:06:09.276 --> 00:06:10.997
and then there's outrage
00:06:11.017 --> 00:06:12.298
for a lot of by the way you
00:06:12.319 --> 00:06:13.079
do a really good job of
00:06:13.119 --> 00:06:14.180
breaking the book down into
00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:16.161
three parts that are kind
00:06:16.201 --> 00:06:17.963
of modeled on the process
00:06:18.002 --> 00:06:18.903
of making whiskey
00:06:23.093 --> 00:06:25.694
And so they react with the
00:06:25.713 --> 00:06:26.954
kinds of protests we had
00:06:26.975 --> 00:06:28.375
seen before the revolution,
00:06:29.235 --> 00:06:31.197
meetings and then actually
00:06:31.377 --> 00:06:32.778
physical attacks on the
00:06:33.057 --> 00:06:34.379
excise collectors or on
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:36.639
people's symbols there to
00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:37.500
enforce the law.
00:06:39.012 --> 00:06:39.593
It was, you know,
00:06:39.613 --> 00:06:40.733
it's an era of gesture
00:06:40.774 --> 00:06:43.096
politics and people hear
00:06:43.156 --> 00:06:44.497
about tax collectors who
00:06:44.557 --> 00:06:46.319
are from the area where
00:06:46.338 --> 00:06:47.360
these attacks are happening,
00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:49.762
Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia.
00:06:50.281 --> 00:06:51.682
And they're very violent attacks,
00:06:51.843 --> 00:06:53.343
tarring and feathering and
00:06:53.704 --> 00:06:55.086
burning with branding irons.
00:06:55.826 --> 00:06:56.666
And I always draw people
00:06:56.726 --> 00:06:58.387
back to the Boston Tea Party.
00:06:59.389 --> 00:07:02.629
This is an era of gesture politics.
00:07:03.209 --> 00:07:04.310
And it's meant to be seen.
00:07:04.391 --> 00:07:06.091
It's meant to be a message.
00:07:06.791 --> 00:07:07.692
And that's what this was.
00:07:07.732 --> 00:07:08.172
I mean,
00:07:08.391 --> 00:07:09.833
when the first tax collectors are
00:07:09.853 --> 00:07:12.113
attacked, and they're very brutal attacks,
00:07:12.713 --> 00:07:13.634
the men who attack them
00:07:14.035 --> 00:07:16.254
dress like Native American warriors.
00:07:16.896 --> 00:07:18.136
Because at the same time
00:07:18.675 --> 00:07:20.216
that the whiskey rebellion is happening,
00:07:20.764 --> 00:07:22.125
There's the Northwest Indian
00:07:22.165 --> 00:07:23.547
War against Little Turtles
00:07:23.607 --> 00:07:26.069
Western Confederacy in Ohio.
00:07:26.488 --> 00:07:27.449
And that's adding extra
00:07:27.488 --> 00:07:28.610
pressure to Western farmers.
00:07:28.649 --> 00:07:29.730
They're being attacked by
00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:31.851
Indian raids all the time.
00:07:31.891 --> 00:07:33.634
So they paint themselves as Indians.
00:07:34.653 --> 00:07:36.675
They make these bold public statements.
00:07:36.716 --> 00:07:38.516
And unfortunately for the tax collectors,
00:07:39.016 --> 00:07:40.757
they suffer physical bodily
00:07:40.817 --> 00:07:42.178
harm on behalf of the
00:07:42.218 --> 00:07:43.720
Treasury Department who's employing them.
00:07:44.221 --> 00:07:44.461
Right.
00:07:44.661 --> 00:07:44.781
Yeah.
00:07:45.889 --> 00:07:47.651
And then you have people who
00:07:47.690 --> 00:07:49.732
then do register their
00:07:49.771 --> 00:07:51.093
stills or show sympathy.
00:07:51.132 --> 00:07:51.853
They're attacked too.
00:07:51.913 --> 00:07:52.113
I mean,
00:07:52.134 --> 00:07:54.074
the mob is not just going after
00:07:54.115 --> 00:07:55.634
these visible attacks
00:07:55.694 --> 00:07:56.776
collected against anyone
00:07:56.815 --> 00:07:58.516
who might be sympathetic with that side.
00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:01.300
We have, you know, in the revolution,
00:08:01.341 --> 00:08:02.680
we have Tories, right?
00:08:03.440 --> 00:08:04.502
These are people who maybe
00:08:04.541 --> 00:08:06.242
don't attach themselves to
00:08:06.262 --> 00:08:07.723
the patriot cause early on.
00:08:08.002 --> 00:08:09.182
You have a similar kind of
00:08:09.762 --> 00:08:12.084
intense dislike of loyalists,
00:08:12.144 --> 00:08:13.564
if you would, in the Whiskey Rebellion.
00:08:14.285 --> 00:08:15.605
If you did play by the rules,
00:08:15.665 --> 00:08:17.165
if you didn't register, you're still.
00:08:17.586 --> 00:08:18.586
You would wake up one day
00:08:18.607 --> 00:08:19.588
and it would be destroyed.
00:08:21.009 --> 00:08:22.389
There was a group of people
00:08:22.410 --> 00:08:23.612
and it's not one person,
00:08:23.651 --> 00:08:24.531
but it's really a group
00:08:24.952 --> 00:08:25.752
that would call themselves
00:08:25.814 --> 00:08:26.694
Tom the Tinker.
00:08:27.254 --> 00:08:28.255
And they would they would
00:08:28.336 --> 00:08:30.437
find someone who played by the rules.
00:08:30.497 --> 00:08:32.178
They'd destroy their still.
00:08:32.219 --> 00:08:33.379
They'd burn their barn and
00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:34.100
they'd leave a note.
00:08:34.561 --> 00:08:35.101
And it would say,
00:08:35.121 --> 00:08:36.442
Tom the Tinker's men were here.
00:08:36.942 --> 00:08:38.524
And that was that was a fear tactic.
00:08:38.585 --> 00:08:39.985
That was, you know,
00:08:40.025 --> 00:08:41.527
a form of intimidation.
00:08:41.967 --> 00:08:42.048
Yeah.
00:08:42.856 --> 00:08:44.179
We're talking with Brady Kreitzer,
00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:45.721
who is the author of The
00:08:45.761 --> 00:08:46.764
Whiskey Rebellion,
00:08:46.823 --> 00:08:47.966
A Distilled History of an
00:08:48.025 --> 00:08:49.067
American Crisis.
00:08:52.019 --> 00:08:53.301
I mean, a lot of things in the book,
00:08:53.520 --> 00:08:54.022
really,
00:08:54.042 --> 00:08:56.082
I found interesting as well as
00:08:56.143 --> 00:08:56.702
surprising.
00:08:56.803 --> 00:08:57.844
One that Washington,
00:08:58.024 --> 00:08:58.945
Pennsylvania was actually
00:08:58.985 --> 00:09:00.466
bigger than Pittsburgh at this time.
00:09:00.505 --> 00:09:01.687
And that seems to be one of
00:09:01.706 --> 00:09:04.129
the real hot points for this rebellion,
00:09:04.188 --> 00:09:06.210
Washington County and then
00:09:06.309 --> 00:09:07.211
Washington itself.
00:09:07.270 --> 00:09:08.172
And another point you make
00:09:08.211 --> 00:09:09.072
in the book is that a lot
00:09:09.091 --> 00:09:10.852
of the leaders of this were
00:09:10.913 --> 00:09:11.854
leaders in the community,
00:09:11.894 --> 00:09:12.794
like John Hamilton,
00:09:12.835 --> 00:09:14.515
no relation to the Treasury Secretary.
00:09:14.535 --> 00:09:15.697
He's the colonel of the militia.
00:09:15.716 --> 00:09:17.638
And the Hamiltons are really
00:09:17.658 --> 00:09:19.720
among the leaders of this
00:09:19.779 --> 00:09:21.500
insurrection or this movement.
00:09:23.201 --> 00:09:24.402
The best way to think of it is,
00:09:24.923 --> 00:09:25.783
so you have Allegheny
00:09:25.822 --> 00:09:27.363
County and then you have
00:09:27.423 --> 00:09:28.484
Washington County and they
00:09:28.504 --> 00:09:29.844
stack on top of one another.
00:09:30.303 --> 00:09:32.105
Allegheny County, the seat is Pittsburgh.
00:09:32.784 --> 00:09:34.846
Pittsburgh is a federal city.
00:09:35.166 --> 00:09:35.485
It is,
00:09:35.505 --> 00:09:37.066
I always like to call it one of the
00:09:37.105 --> 00:09:38.447
capitals of the frontier.
00:09:39.366 --> 00:09:40.466
There's a federal fort,
00:09:40.506 --> 00:09:41.748
there are federal buildings,
00:09:41.868 --> 00:09:42.988
federal agencies.
00:09:43.048 --> 00:09:44.288
It's a federal city,
00:09:44.688 --> 00:09:45.948
but it's surrounded by a
00:09:46.048 --> 00:09:48.289
sea of very anti-federal sentiment,
00:09:48.809 --> 00:09:49.110
farmers.
00:09:50.057 --> 00:09:50.197
Um,
00:09:50.457 --> 00:09:52.578
so just south of it is Washington
00:09:52.619 --> 00:09:55.559
County and Washington County is growing.
00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:57.280
Um, it has a,
00:09:57.500 --> 00:09:58.780
it has a County seat also
00:09:58.841 --> 00:10:00.961
called Washington named after the general,
00:10:01.381 --> 00:10:01.621
you know,
00:10:01.642 --> 00:10:03.182
these people are not never anti
00:10:03.202 --> 00:10:04.062
George Washington.
00:10:04.822 --> 00:10:06.283
He's what rises above for them.
00:10:06.903 --> 00:10:08.724
Um, but it's, it's a growing fast city.
00:10:08.764 --> 00:10:09.804
It'll have mansions.
00:10:09.904 --> 00:10:10.365
It'll have,
00:10:10.644 --> 00:10:12.225
it'll look like us almost like
00:10:12.265 --> 00:10:13.645
a miniature Baltimore.
00:10:13.686 --> 00:10:14.846
If you could think of it that way.
00:10:15.486 --> 00:10:18.067
Um, and people there are educated and, and,
00:10:18.248 --> 00:10:19.327
and, and wealthy.
00:10:20.461 --> 00:10:22.001
But it's around Washington
00:10:22.022 --> 00:10:23.322
where you have these hollows,
00:10:23.381 --> 00:10:24.602
very Appalachian kind of
00:10:24.643 --> 00:10:27.344
places with lots of Irish families.
00:10:28.004 --> 00:10:29.304
And these ruling families
00:10:29.345 --> 00:10:30.605
almost become like gangs,
00:10:31.184 --> 00:10:32.885
almost like the Hatfield and McCoy gangs.
00:10:32.926 --> 00:10:34.927
They have people attached to them.
00:10:35.246 --> 00:10:37.528
They have influenced John Hamilton.
00:10:38.327 --> 00:10:39.668
is the sheriff of the of the
00:10:39.749 --> 00:10:40.710
region he's one of the
00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:42.071
primary leaders of the of
00:10:42.091 --> 00:10:43.591
the rebellion and he's also
00:10:43.851 --> 00:10:45.332
the governor appointed head
00:10:45.373 --> 00:10:46.592
of the of the state militia
00:10:47.134 --> 00:10:48.514
so if there was an uprising
00:10:48.595 --> 00:10:49.534
he would be the one to have
00:10:49.554 --> 00:10:50.816
to put it down and he's the
00:10:50.875 --> 00:10:52.456
one responsible right so
00:10:52.496 --> 00:10:54.479
it's it's it's very tribal
00:10:54.519 --> 00:10:56.200
in a way um and I think
00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:57.740
when you study the frontier
00:10:57.780 --> 00:10:58.942
you kind of learn this
00:10:59.022 --> 00:11:00.121
shorthand that develops
00:11:01.842 --> 00:11:02.023
Yeah,
00:11:02.302 --> 00:11:05.945
so another of the characters who is a
00:11:05.985 --> 00:11:06.245
real,
00:11:06.605 --> 00:11:08.005
two characters who are important
00:11:08.066 --> 00:11:08.905
generally in American
00:11:08.966 --> 00:11:09.765
history but really play a
00:11:09.785 --> 00:11:10.466
big role in this are
00:11:10.506 --> 00:11:12.307
William Findlay and Albert Gallatin.
00:11:12.947 --> 00:11:14.989
And Gallatin is a relatively
00:11:15.369 --> 00:11:17.629
new arrival on this frontier.
00:11:17.669 --> 00:11:19.610
He's from Switzerland and he
00:11:20.110 --> 00:11:22.631
has set up an estate,
00:11:22.652 --> 00:11:24.332
a glassworks that he wants
00:11:24.393 --> 00:11:26.053
to sort of glassworks at Friendship Hill.
00:11:26.994 --> 00:11:27.933
And he plays an interesting
00:11:27.994 --> 00:11:28.794
role in all of this.
00:11:29.826 --> 00:11:31.208
Yeah, Gallatin, you know,
00:11:31.249 --> 00:11:33.030
he comes to America, as you mentioned,
00:11:33.051 --> 00:11:36.094
from Geneva because he gets he gets very,
00:11:36.453 --> 00:11:38.556
I think, disenchanted by the old world.
00:11:38.596 --> 00:11:39.998
And when he sees America,
00:11:40.057 --> 00:11:41.198
he spends time in Boston.
00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:43.100
He says it's this is a direct quote.
00:11:43.341 --> 00:11:44.883
Terribly boring is what he says.
00:11:46.144 --> 00:11:47.605
He sees the frontier as this
00:11:47.745 --> 00:11:49.028
just blank canvas.
00:11:49.288 --> 00:11:49.488
I mean,
00:11:49.508 --> 00:11:51.610
the real America that he read about.
00:11:52.350 --> 00:11:54.873
And he sees rivers and hills and valleys,
00:11:54.913 --> 00:11:55.972
and he sees places that you
00:11:55.993 --> 00:11:58.595
can literally start cities from scratch.
00:11:59.134 --> 00:12:01.596
So he moves to the far
00:12:01.696 --> 00:12:04.057
southwestern corner of Pennsylvania,
00:12:04.837 --> 00:12:07.379
and he establishes a town.
00:12:07.418 --> 00:12:08.919
He wants to call it New Geneva.
00:12:09.379 --> 00:12:12.101
He's an interesting character.
00:12:12.142 --> 00:12:14.663
He's a short man, thick accent,
00:12:15.163 --> 00:12:17.043
but the people of the West
00:12:17.424 --> 00:12:18.625
really embrace him because
00:12:18.664 --> 00:12:19.485
he's a true believer.
00:12:20.385 --> 00:12:22.047
And he believes in what
00:12:22.086 --> 00:12:23.027
they're capable of.
00:12:23.067 --> 00:12:24.168
He believes in the future.
00:12:24.187 --> 00:12:24.807
You know,
00:12:24.868 --> 00:12:26.629
I'm just finishing a book now on
00:12:26.649 --> 00:12:27.548
the national road,
00:12:27.609 --> 00:12:29.910
and it's really a story on
00:12:30.150 --> 00:12:30.931
on what he's doing.
00:12:30.971 --> 00:12:32.412
So I'm really in Gallatin mode here.
00:12:32.951 --> 00:12:34.812
But he is he speaks for
00:12:34.852 --> 00:12:37.153
those people and he always does.
00:12:37.793 --> 00:12:38.695
uh at the time he's in the
00:12:38.735 --> 00:12:40.375
pennsylvania assembly right
00:12:40.696 --> 00:12:42.017
uh and he is responsible
00:12:42.096 --> 00:12:43.457
early on for helping them
00:12:43.577 --> 00:12:44.738
organize their grievances
00:12:44.899 --> 00:12:46.219
why is this law a problem
00:12:46.580 --> 00:12:49.081
why is it harmful uh to our
00:12:49.140 --> 00:12:50.642
way of life and he helps
00:12:50.662 --> 00:12:51.743
them compile it in a
00:12:51.783 --> 00:12:53.484
document and he and finley
00:12:53.524 --> 00:12:54.625
will actually deliver those
00:12:54.684 --> 00:12:56.285
documents themselves to the
00:12:56.326 --> 00:12:57.586
capitol gallatin will
00:12:57.947 --> 00:12:59.047
deliver the grievances to
00:12:59.086 --> 00:13:00.628
the state assembly and
00:13:00.687 --> 00:13:01.609
william finley is the
00:13:01.649 --> 00:13:03.309
congressman at large for western
00:13:04.431 --> 00:13:06.351
He'll deliver them to the
00:13:06.591 --> 00:13:07.631
House of Representatives.
00:13:08.131 --> 00:13:09.472
Gallatin is there early on.
00:13:09.952 --> 00:13:11.193
Once it gets out of control,
00:13:11.234 --> 00:13:12.714
when it turns violent, he leaves.
00:13:13.494 --> 00:13:16.095
And he will say that his participation was,
00:13:16.456 --> 00:13:18.535
quote, his only political sin.
00:13:19.057 --> 00:13:21.277
And for a lifetime, lifelong politician,
00:13:21.297 --> 00:13:22.077
that's a big admission.
00:13:22.638 --> 00:13:22.918
That is.
00:13:23.437 --> 00:13:24.479
And it really makes him a
00:13:24.739 --> 00:13:26.519
target for Alexander Hamilton.
00:13:26.538 --> 00:13:27.960
And these two really do form
00:13:29.077 --> 00:13:30.298
polarity, because of course,
00:13:30.538 --> 00:13:31.519
Gallatin becomes the
00:13:31.558 --> 00:13:32.759
Secretary of the Treasury,
00:13:32.798 --> 00:13:34.379
which a much different idea
00:13:34.419 --> 00:13:36.301
about national development than Hamilton.
00:13:36.620 --> 00:13:38.061
Hamilton very much top down,
00:13:38.561 --> 00:13:39.601
and will tell you what is
00:13:39.662 --> 00:13:41.101
best and Gallatin and the
00:13:41.142 --> 00:13:42.263
Jeffersonians really
00:13:42.302 --> 00:13:44.082
looking at these organic
00:13:44.123 --> 00:13:45.823
ways of creating national wealth.
00:13:46.940 --> 00:13:48.802
That's a great way to see it.
00:13:48.822 --> 00:13:51.086
I call him the anti-Hamilton in a way.
00:13:52.147 --> 00:13:54.129
That's the name of the musical.
00:13:54.850 --> 00:13:55.652
Yes, exactly.
00:13:56.192 --> 00:13:57.274
It would be a boring one too.
00:13:58.115 --> 00:13:59.076
He was famous for having,
00:13:59.216 --> 00:14:00.498
when he was in Washington,
00:14:00.538 --> 00:14:01.940
having young congressmen
00:14:01.980 --> 00:14:03.221
come to his house to counsel them.
00:14:03.822 --> 00:14:05.302
And never serving alcohol.
00:14:05.342 --> 00:14:06.643
So he was well known for that.
00:14:07.823 --> 00:14:11.504
But he he would serve Jefferson, Madison,
00:14:11.524 --> 00:14:14.225
Monroe and Adams distinguished career.
00:14:14.265 --> 00:14:16.767
But it all kind of began from a trauma.
00:14:17.148 --> 00:14:19.148
And that trauma was the Whiskey Rebellion.
00:14:19.187 --> 00:14:20.969
That's where he learned the
00:14:21.009 --> 00:14:22.990
danger of maybe populism.
00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:23.830
Right.
00:14:23.850 --> 00:14:24.070
Yeah.
00:14:24.471 --> 00:14:24.671
Yeah.
00:14:25.150 --> 00:14:25.551
Yeah.
00:14:25.918 --> 00:14:27.359
And then Hamilton engineers
00:14:27.438 --> 00:14:28.700
his ouster from the Senate
00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:30.779
when the legislature elects
00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:33.120
him in the wake of all of this.
00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:33.880
Yeah,
00:14:33.921 --> 00:14:36.562
very familiar tones of today's world.
00:14:36.601 --> 00:14:38.682
He's a Genevan in a new country.
00:14:38.761 --> 00:14:41.043
He's elected to the United States Senate.
00:14:41.423 --> 00:14:43.403
And immediately upon his election,
00:14:44.083 --> 00:14:46.203
a conspiracy develops led
00:14:46.244 --> 00:14:47.664
by Hamilton to get him ousted.
00:14:47.705 --> 00:14:49.544
And their reason is that he
00:14:49.825 --> 00:14:50.745
can't be trusted.
00:14:50.804 --> 00:14:51.645
He's a foreigner.
00:14:51.725 --> 00:14:52.625
He's an outsider.
00:14:53.466 --> 00:14:54.547
How could we trust him?
00:14:54.626 --> 00:14:56.206
Even when he becomes a
00:14:56.246 --> 00:14:57.807
member of the Jefferson administration,
00:14:58.288 --> 00:14:58.888
people will say,
00:14:58.927 --> 00:15:00.428
how could he talk to Napoleon?
00:15:01.009 --> 00:15:03.070
His own native language.
00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:04.890
Can we really trust this guy?
00:15:05.910 --> 00:15:08.772
It was a very telling time, I think.
00:15:09.332 --> 00:15:10.712
And again, we see these themes today.
00:15:11.273 --> 00:15:11.614
We do.
00:15:11.714 --> 00:15:11.933
We do.
00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:15.662
And William Findlay serves in Congress.
00:15:15.701 --> 00:15:19.205
He's an opponent of the
00:15:19.264 --> 00:15:21.125
ratifying the Constitution in 1788,
00:15:21.125 --> 00:15:22.687
but then he becomes 1787, 1888,
00:15:22.687 --> 00:15:26.049
serves as a long distinguished current.
00:15:26.070 --> 00:15:26.990
He also writes one of the
00:15:27.510 --> 00:15:28.831
first histories of this
00:15:29.072 --> 00:15:30.453
event in the wake of it.
00:15:32.028 --> 00:15:34.510
Finley is he'll eventually
00:15:34.551 --> 00:15:35.611
be named the father.
00:15:35.631 --> 00:15:37.475
And it's a ceremonial title,
00:15:37.634 --> 00:15:39.417
father of the House of Representatives.
00:15:39.437 --> 00:15:41.499
He's long, distinguished career,
00:15:42.561 --> 00:15:44.942
very well established man of the people,
00:15:45.043 --> 00:15:46.544
Jeffersonian type really
00:15:46.585 --> 00:15:47.527
before that emerges.
00:15:49.147 --> 00:15:50.908
And he is suspicious of this
00:15:51.028 --> 00:15:52.687
law from the beginning.
00:15:53.448 --> 00:15:54.889
And he's involved in a lot
00:15:54.908 --> 00:15:55.908
of the early proceedings.
00:15:55.948 --> 00:15:57.230
And again, they are not violent.
00:15:57.429 --> 00:15:58.950
They're listing grievances,
00:15:59.090 --> 00:16:00.009
making resolves,
00:16:00.169 --> 00:16:01.990
but the constitution tells
00:16:02.030 --> 00:16:03.650
these farmers they're allowed to do.
00:16:04.511 --> 00:16:07.591
But even as the rebellion goes on,
00:16:07.652 --> 00:16:08.572
he becomes a target.
00:16:09.173 --> 00:16:10.913
Thomas Jefferson, excuse me,
00:16:11.232 --> 00:16:12.394
Alexander Hamilton will
00:16:12.413 --> 00:16:14.533
list him as a ringleader of
00:16:14.553 --> 00:16:16.054
the movement when he wasn't.
00:16:16.835 --> 00:16:18.875
you know, really as a as a means of,
00:16:20.056 --> 00:16:20.316
you know,
00:16:20.355 --> 00:16:22.177
redress for their political differences.
00:16:22.197 --> 00:16:23.596
And it really gives us one
00:16:23.616 --> 00:16:25.258
of the great histories of the rebellion.
00:16:25.738 --> 00:16:26.518
And there's a couple of
00:16:26.599 --> 00:16:27.379
people that do this,
00:16:27.778 --> 00:16:28.719
and then he'll interview
00:16:28.778 --> 00:16:30.139
people who interview neighbors,
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:31.440
get firsthand accounts.
00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:33.341
It's incredibly valuable to historians.
00:16:33.904 --> 00:16:34.926
But the underlying theme of
00:16:34.966 --> 00:16:36.966
that book is I was there,
00:16:37.327 --> 00:16:38.087
but I'm not guilty.
00:16:38.467 --> 00:16:38.889
Okay.
00:16:38.928 --> 00:16:40.950
He's always writing, I was there,
00:16:41.070 --> 00:16:42.291
but I'm not one of these
00:16:42.772 --> 00:16:44.253
maniacs that went too far.
00:16:44.273 --> 00:16:45.673
That is to exonerate himself.
00:16:46.374 --> 00:16:46.595
Right.
00:16:46.634 --> 00:16:46.835
Yeah.
00:16:47.495 --> 00:16:48.375
And then, of course,
00:16:48.395 --> 00:16:49.277
the other one who writes a
00:16:49.317 --> 00:16:51.597
history is Hugh Henry Brackenridge,
00:16:51.658 --> 00:16:52.178
who has been...
00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:54.340
Very similar, yeah.
00:16:54.379 --> 00:16:55.780
Friend of Madison's,
00:16:55.841 --> 00:16:57.322
classmate of Madison's at Princeton,
00:16:57.422 --> 00:16:59.462
and then he's out there on the frontier,
00:16:59.562 --> 00:17:01.524
and he's also involved and
00:17:02.164 --> 00:17:03.105
writes a history.
00:17:03.666 --> 00:17:05.767
The Gallatin, Finley,
00:17:05.866 --> 00:17:06.607
and Brackenridge are all
00:17:06.647 --> 00:17:08.469
somewhat moderates in this.
00:17:08.489 --> 00:17:09.670
Very much.
00:17:11.711 --> 00:17:12.652
don't go as far as somebody
00:17:12.672 --> 00:17:14.452
else um david bradford's
00:17:14.613 --> 00:17:16.894
and then he seems like a
00:17:16.974 --> 00:17:18.155
classic demagogue I mean he
00:17:18.195 --> 00:17:19.516
arrives on the scene and is
00:17:19.557 --> 00:17:20.457
always trying to figure out
00:17:20.557 --> 00:17:22.137
which way we'll get you
00:17:22.157 --> 00:17:23.778
know which way to lead this
00:17:23.858 --> 00:17:25.099
group who seems to be
00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:25.921
already going in one
00:17:25.961 --> 00:17:27.501
direction and I would agree
00:17:27.521 --> 00:17:28.702
I would agree yeah david
00:17:28.722 --> 00:17:30.064
bradford you know after the
00:17:30.104 --> 00:17:31.284
rebellion turns violent
00:17:31.505 --> 00:17:32.505
bradford really isn't
00:17:32.565 --> 00:17:33.925
involved until the very end
00:17:34.707 --> 00:17:35.666
he's kind of a cheerleader
00:17:35.707 --> 00:17:36.728
he's from maryland very
00:17:36.788 --> 00:17:37.949
wealthy not a frontiersman
00:17:38.779 --> 00:17:40.422
And when the rebellion turns violent,
00:17:40.442 --> 00:17:41.983
the leadership, like Finley,
00:17:42.023 --> 00:17:43.306
like Gallatin, they flee.
00:17:43.346 --> 00:17:45.008
They don't want to be involved in this.
00:17:45.648 --> 00:17:47.191
And Bradford kind of gets
00:17:47.311 --> 00:17:49.413
roped into taking over the
00:17:49.775 --> 00:17:51.817
rebellion at its most dangerous point.
00:17:52.357 --> 00:17:53.339
And he embraces it.
00:17:53.380 --> 00:17:54.882
He calls himself the
00:17:54.942 --> 00:17:56.123
Robespierre of the West.
00:17:57.407 --> 00:17:59.588
He shows up riding on a white horse.
00:17:59.648 --> 00:18:01.528
He has military medallions
00:18:01.568 --> 00:18:02.489
and he's never served.
00:18:02.888 --> 00:18:03.749
No one knows where he gets
00:18:03.769 --> 00:18:04.430
these medallions.
00:18:05.089 --> 00:18:07.529
And the rebels rally around him.
00:18:07.549 --> 00:18:08.309
And he's the one that
00:18:08.369 --> 00:18:10.830
transforms this from being
00:18:10.911 --> 00:18:13.211
an anti-tax protest to
00:18:14.090 --> 00:18:15.791
ultimately a secessionist movement.
00:18:16.352 --> 00:18:18.392
He will send representatives
00:18:18.912 --> 00:18:20.313
to Louisiana to meet with
00:18:20.353 --> 00:18:21.353
the Spanish Empire.
00:18:21.885 --> 00:18:23.567
He'll have a flag made for
00:18:24.588 --> 00:18:25.711
the counties that are in
00:18:25.810 --> 00:18:27.593
rebellion against the United States.
00:18:28.153 --> 00:18:30.076
And he'll ultimately attempt
00:18:30.135 --> 00:18:32.479
to sack Pittsburgh, the federal city.
00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:35.863
So he's the one that, again,
00:18:35.982 --> 00:18:37.585
always will conflate himself
00:18:38.346 --> 00:18:39.287
raise himself.
00:18:39.346 --> 00:18:41.769
He he raids the mail coming
00:18:41.869 --> 00:18:43.131
out of the federal mail
00:18:43.191 --> 00:18:44.152
coming out of Pittsburgh.
00:18:44.613 --> 00:18:45.513
And he'll say this just
00:18:45.554 --> 00:18:46.595
because he wants to know
00:18:46.694 --> 00:18:48.036
what people are saying about him.
00:18:48.416 --> 00:18:49.317
And there's letters in there
00:18:49.397 --> 00:18:50.499
from Alexander Hamilton.
00:18:50.818 --> 00:18:51.500
And he wants to know,
00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:53.080
do people realize that I'm
00:18:53.142 --> 00:18:54.383
the face of this movement now?
00:18:55.384 --> 00:18:56.305
So he comes in at the end
00:18:56.325 --> 00:18:57.605
and he's he's kind of, I think,
00:18:57.685 --> 00:18:57.926
one of the
00:18:58.806 --> 00:18:59.769
the least appealing
00:19:00.148 --> 00:19:00.991
characters or at least
00:19:01.132 --> 00:19:02.295
appetizing characters that
00:19:02.335 --> 00:19:03.176
comes out of this because
00:19:03.617 --> 00:19:05.082
we know people like this
00:19:05.122 --> 00:19:06.404
and we still know them and
00:19:07.267 --> 00:19:08.309
they serve the same purpose.
00:19:09.134 --> 00:19:09.595
Right, they do.
00:19:09.855 --> 00:19:11.316
We're talking with Brady Kreitzer,
00:19:11.435 --> 00:19:12.797
author of The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:19:12.836 --> 00:19:13.897
A Distilled History of an
00:19:13.917 --> 00:19:14.959
American Crisis.
00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:16.480
And of course,
00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:19.721
one of the big episodes in 1794,
00:19:19.721 --> 00:19:20.323
Washington,
00:19:20.343 --> 00:19:21.502
in response to all of this
00:19:21.544 --> 00:19:22.984
violence on the frontier
00:19:23.565 --> 00:19:25.425
and the threat of burning Pittsburgh,
00:19:25.486 --> 00:19:28.848
does send, he leads an army west.
00:19:29.710 --> 00:19:29.829
And
00:19:30.670 --> 00:19:32.551
About 12,000 men mustered
00:19:32.652 --> 00:19:34.353
from these four states who
00:19:34.413 --> 00:19:35.795
are going out to suppress
00:19:35.875 --> 00:19:38.076
this insurrection, which, again,
00:19:38.096 --> 00:19:39.178
that's a fascinating story.
00:19:39.577 --> 00:19:40.278
It's the last time a
00:19:40.318 --> 00:19:43.800
president led troops into a
00:19:43.861 --> 00:19:44.801
confrontation like this.
00:19:45.021 --> 00:19:46.443
Yeah, into the field of battle.
00:19:46.824 --> 00:19:48.065
So Washington has...
00:19:49.949 --> 00:19:51.089
really given this thought.
00:19:51.170 --> 00:19:52.651
He sees domestic rebellion.
00:19:52.671 --> 00:19:54.491
He reads his constitutional duties,
00:19:55.152 --> 00:19:55.692
but he doesn't have a
00:19:55.752 --> 00:19:57.032
federal army at his
00:19:57.073 --> 00:19:58.894
disposal to call upon.
00:19:59.035 --> 00:20:00.675
He does have some semblance
00:20:00.715 --> 00:20:01.836
of that with Anthony Wayne,
00:20:01.855 --> 00:20:03.517
but they're near Cincinnati
00:20:03.557 --> 00:20:05.278
preparing to fight the
00:20:05.318 --> 00:20:06.459
Indian warriors of the West.
00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:08.339
So he'll call upon the
00:20:08.380 --> 00:20:10.682
governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland,
00:20:10.942 --> 00:20:12.363
New Jersey, and Virginia to
00:20:13.055 --> 00:20:14.175
And he'll give them a quota
00:20:14.435 --> 00:20:16.196
and he asked for 15,000 men.
00:20:17.198 --> 00:20:18.419
These are all state militia.
00:20:18.558 --> 00:20:19.940
These are not veterans of
00:20:19.980 --> 00:20:21.079
the American Revolution.
00:20:21.099 --> 00:20:22.361
They're kind of the next generation.
00:20:24.045 --> 00:20:26.346
And he'll call up 13,000 of them.
00:20:26.385 --> 00:20:27.105
And the only reason he
00:20:27.125 --> 00:20:28.705
doesn't get his 15,000 is
00:20:28.746 --> 00:20:30.125
because Western
00:20:30.165 --> 00:20:31.426
Pennsylvania and Western
00:20:31.467 --> 00:20:33.386
Virginia were part of that quota,
00:20:33.426 --> 00:20:35.407
and they all went to the rebel side.
00:20:36.788 --> 00:20:38.367
But he will have a pretty
00:20:38.407 --> 00:20:39.548
impressive list of people
00:20:39.588 --> 00:20:40.229
leading the way.
00:20:40.269 --> 00:20:40.648
Of course,
00:20:40.689 --> 00:20:42.489
the governors of the different
00:20:42.548 --> 00:20:43.829
states will lead their armies.
00:20:43.890 --> 00:20:45.089
And the governor of Virginia
00:20:45.609 --> 00:20:46.829
is Light Horse Harry Lee.
00:20:48.411 --> 00:20:49.951
And Light Horse Harry Lee's
00:20:50.191 --> 00:20:51.230
second in command is going
00:20:51.250 --> 00:20:52.051
to be Daniel Morgan.
00:20:54.031 --> 00:20:56.512
These are incredibly
00:20:56.554 --> 00:20:58.494
important players in the
00:20:58.535 --> 00:20:59.654
American Revolution,
00:20:59.875 --> 00:21:01.036
and they're being called up
00:21:01.115 --> 00:21:04.057
right again just 1794,
00:21:04.057 --> 00:21:06.137
just a decade after the Revolution ends.
00:21:06.198 --> 00:21:08.199
But Washington will lead them himself.
00:21:08.219 --> 00:21:09.599
He has a bad back at the time,
00:21:09.660 --> 00:21:10.721
so he rides in a carriage.
00:21:11.861 --> 00:21:14.061
Alexander Hamilton is at his side,
00:21:15.002 --> 00:21:16.203
as a Treasury Secretary
00:21:16.223 --> 00:21:17.723
would be right in the field of battle.
00:21:18.105 --> 00:21:18.704
He's right there.
00:21:20.068 --> 00:21:22.191
And Washington always had
00:21:22.230 --> 00:21:24.132
this idea that when he
00:21:24.192 --> 00:21:25.292
crossed over the mountains
00:21:25.853 --> 00:21:27.233
that separate Pennsylvania,
00:21:28.275 --> 00:21:29.415
there's a federal fort there,
00:21:29.455 --> 00:21:30.155
Fort Bedford,
00:21:30.757 --> 00:21:32.357
right at the foot of the mountain.
00:21:32.738 --> 00:21:33.878
And he believed if he got to
00:21:33.898 --> 00:21:35.380
Bedford and it was still in
00:21:35.460 --> 00:21:36.340
federal control,
00:21:36.941 --> 00:21:38.201
the rebellion was probably
00:21:38.281 --> 00:21:39.502
contained in the West.
00:21:39.563 --> 00:21:40.804
And when he got to Bedford...
00:21:41.324 --> 00:21:42.945
Bedford threw a big
00:21:43.165 --> 00:21:44.366
celebration for President
00:21:44.406 --> 00:21:47.128
Washington and he said,
00:21:47.269 --> 00:21:48.911
I think we're probably okay.
00:21:48.931 --> 00:21:50.551
And Washington would go back
00:21:50.592 --> 00:21:51.752
to Philadelphia at that point.
00:21:52.554 --> 00:21:53.835
But it was Light Horse Harry
00:21:53.875 --> 00:21:55.395
Lee and Alexander Hamilton
00:21:55.415 --> 00:21:57.097
that would march the army
00:21:57.137 --> 00:21:59.138
the rest of the way into whiskey country,
00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.779
as they called it.
00:22:00.461 --> 00:22:03.702
And as the army marched in, fortunately,
00:22:04.263 --> 00:22:05.724
the insurrection kind of
00:22:05.765 --> 00:22:07.105
lost its spine a bit.
00:22:08.415 --> 00:22:11.198
rebel leadership fled Pittsburgh.
00:22:11.778 --> 00:22:13.539
David Bradford escaped down
00:22:13.579 --> 00:22:14.901
the Ohio and Mississippi
00:22:14.941 --> 00:22:16.923
into Spanish territory.
00:22:18.182 --> 00:22:19.344
And he lived in exile there
00:22:19.403 --> 00:22:20.664
for years as a result.
00:22:21.705 --> 00:22:22.807
And when the army arrived,
00:22:22.866 --> 00:22:23.647
I say in my book,
00:22:23.827 --> 00:22:25.068
they became the largest
00:22:25.128 --> 00:22:26.589
police force in American history,
00:22:26.589 --> 00:22:26.690
13,000 men.
00:22:28.310 --> 00:22:29.832
Because they went on a spree
00:22:29.892 --> 00:22:32.134
of arresting hundreds of
00:22:32.775 --> 00:22:34.415
rebels or even suspected rebels.
00:22:35.196 --> 00:22:39.039
A lot of them without proper due process.
00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:40.540
They'd keep their men locked
00:22:40.601 --> 00:22:41.801
in basements without food
00:22:41.842 --> 00:22:43.343
and water for days at a time.
00:22:43.383 --> 00:22:44.544
They would march them
00:22:44.584 --> 00:22:45.805
through rivers and streams.
00:22:45.865 --> 00:22:47.547
It's wintertime now, November.
00:22:47.547 --> 00:22:50.488
1793 barefoot just to
00:22:50.528 --> 00:22:51.888
inflict damage and torment
00:22:52.588 --> 00:22:54.569
um and that was sort of the
00:22:54.730 --> 00:22:56.269
you know the the I guess
00:22:56.309 --> 00:22:58.550
the cost of sedition for
00:22:58.570 --> 00:23:01.271
them um I should note that
00:23:01.692 --> 00:23:02.712
in the west they called it
00:23:02.772 --> 00:23:04.513
the dreadful night yes
00:23:04.673 --> 00:23:05.653
because it was it was
00:23:06.193 --> 00:23:07.095
viewed as so cruel and
00:23:07.134 --> 00:23:08.915
humane but when the federal
00:23:08.955 --> 00:23:10.796
army or excuse me the state
00:23:10.895 --> 00:23:12.396
militias came here to to
00:23:12.457 --> 00:23:14.298
pittsburgh uh they they
00:23:14.657 --> 00:23:16.818
dropped the hammer very very profoundly
00:23:18.253 --> 00:23:19.114
How did it get the name of
00:23:19.134 --> 00:23:20.095
the Watermelon Army?
00:23:21.795 --> 00:23:24.316
So the Westerners would
00:23:24.375 --> 00:23:25.715
always try to portray
00:23:25.816 --> 00:23:26.695
everything that the
00:23:26.776 --> 00:23:29.977
Easterners did as right as politicians do,
00:23:30.616 --> 00:23:31.897
as backwards or wrong.
00:23:31.917 --> 00:23:33.238
And the idea was all these
00:23:33.298 --> 00:23:34.979
whiskey rebels were
00:23:35.038 --> 00:23:36.338
Revolutionary War veterans,
00:23:36.659 --> 00:23:38.219
battle-hardened patriots, right?
00:23:38.259 --> 00:23:40.339
They were on the good side in their minds.
00:23:40.907 --> 00:23:43.088
so so the watermelon army
00:23:43.128 --> 00:23:44.189
was the name that the new
00:23:44.229 --> 00:23:45.189
jerseyans and the
00:23:45.229 --> 00:23:46.869
pennsylvanians really more
00:23:46.890 --> 00:23:47.869
than anyone else got uh
00:23:48.611 --> 00:23:49.411
because these were young
00:23:49.431 --> 00:23:50.810
guys and they were not well
00:23:50.911 --> 00:23:51.991
trained and they were not
00:23:52.132 --> 00:23:53.731
well uh disciplined and
00:23:53.751 --> 00:23:55.173
they would they would
00:23:55.212 --> 00:23:57.032
terrorize farmers on the
00:23:57.093 --> 00:23:59.034
way to meeting the whiskey
00:23:59.094 --> 00:24:00.374
rebels they would eat their
00:24:00.473 --> 00:24:02.295
food tear down their fences they would
00:24:02.674 --> 00:24:03.596
get in fistfights.
00:24:03.655 --> 00:24:05.458
We even have an example of a
00:24:05.557 --> 00:24:06.779
soldier murdering another
00:24:06.819 --> 00:24:07.681
soldier in a duel,
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:09.623
just seemingly because they were bored,
00:24:09.682 --> 00:24:09.883
right?
00:24:10.523 --> 00:24:11.845
Sitting around too long.
00:24:12.586 --> 00:24:13.487
So they were viewed as like
00:24:13.507 --> 00:24:16.109
an undisciplined bunch of newborns,
00:24:16.170 --> 00:24:16.911
if you know, if you would.
00:24:17.409 --> 00:24:18.750
And the Watermelon Army was
00:24:18.809 --> 00:24:20.030
a label that came to them.
00:24:20.050 --> 00:24:22.511
It was a pejorative, sort of like,
00:24:22.531 --> 00:24:24.173
you know, they're out there, you know,
00:24:24.192 --> 00:24:25.193
we fought the British,
00:24:25.213 --> 00:24:26.795
they're out there fighting watermelons.
00:24:26.875 --> 00:24:28.455
Fighting watermelons.
00:24:29.195 --> 00:24:29.355
Yeah.
00:24:29.395 --> 00:24:30.356
The governor of New Jersey
00:24:30.396 --> 00:24:31.617
even wrote a marching song
00:24:31.678 --> 00:24:32.798
for the New Jersey troops
00:24:32.878 --> 00:24:34.680
as a way of helping to spur enlistments.
00:24:35.289 --> 00:24:37.411
Yes, he wrote Onward, Jersey Blues.
00:24:38.751 --> 00:24:38.991
You know,
00:24:39.011 --> 00:24:40.972
it's interesting when you look at
00:24:41.113 --> 00:24:42.874
newspapers in the East Coast,
00:24:43.134 --> 00:24:44.996
they are resoundingly in
00:24:45.096 --> 00:24:47.196
favor of suppressing this rebellion.
00:24:47.737 --> 00:24:47.916
Again,
00:24:47.936 --> 00:24:49.498
it was never called the Whiskey
00:24:49.577 --> 00:24:50.699
Rebellion in its time.
00:24:50.798 --> 00:24:52.859
It was called the Western Insurrection.
00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:55.300
And from President Washington's viewpoint,
00:24:55.342 --> 00:24:56.721
look at the terror that's
00:24:56.761 --> 00:24:59.584
taken over in France, the unrest there.
00:24:59.604 --> 00:25:00.704
You know, Washington views
00:25:01.653 --> 00:25:02.913
what's going on on his
00:25:02.973 --> 00:25:05.174
Western flank as maybe an
00:25:05.234 --> 00:25:06.855
extension of what's going on in Europe.
00:25:06.915 --> 00:25:07.415
You know, it looks,
00:25:07.916 --> 00:25:09.577
if you take that zoomed out view,
00:25:09.657 --> 00:25:10.538
it looks like the world's
00:25:10.597 --> 00:25:11.939
burning itself to the ground.
00:25:12.578 --> 00:25:13.599
And Washington is,
00:25:13.779 --> 00:25:15.681
is very aware that he's the
00:25:15.721 --> 00:25:16.402
first president.
00:25:16.761 --> 00:25:18.282
He does not want to lose this Republic.
00:25:19.143 --> 00:25:21.144
So I think that shadows or
00:25:21.364 --> 00:25:22.424
colors a lot of his
00:25:22.464 --> 00:25:23.965
decision-making in the process,
00:25:24.006 --> 00:25:26.047
but there is strong support
00:25:26.106 --> 00:25:28.087
for what they end up doing in the East,
00:25:28.147 --> 00:25:28.588
as you mentioned,
00:25:28.608 --> 00:25:29.989
especially in New Jersey and New York.
00:25:30.009 --> 00:25:30.150
Yeah.
00:25:31.457 --> 00:25:32.817
Yeah, we're talking with Brady Kreitzer,
00:25:32.998 --> 00:25:34.339
author of The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:35.461
A Distilled History of an
00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:36.422
American Crisis.
00:25:36.821 --> 00:25:37.021
Again,
00:25:37.061 --> 00:25:38.864
if we just look at what's happening
00:25:39.064 --> 00:25:40.164
in western Pennsylvania,
00:25:40.204 --> 00:25:41.306
we see their grievances
00:25:41.385 --> 00:25:43.488
against this excise tax,
00:25:43.587 --> 00:25:44.769
which does hit them.
00:25:44.828 --> 00:25:46.109
But then you're right.
00:25:46.130 --> 00:25:47.131
There's this bigger picture
00:25:47.151 --> 00:25:48.393
that Washington is seeing,
00:25:48.512 --> 00:25:50.714
not only with the native people in Ohio,
00:25:51.375 --> 00:25:51.875
which, of course,
00:25:51.894 --> 00:25:54.195
the Pennsylvanians also recognize,
00:25:54.336 --> 00:25:55.675
but the fact that the
00:25:55.715 --> 00:25:57.537
British are arming them and
00:25:57.576 --> 00:25:59.037
that Spain wants to control
00:25:59.057 --> 00:26:00.137
the Mississippi River and
00:26:00.178 --> 00:26:02.318
then overall seeing this
00:26:02.378 --> 00:26:03.538
turmoil in France.
00:26:03.598 --> 00:26:04.878
And you have Bradford
00:26:04.919 --> 00:26:05.579
calling himself the
00:26:05.619 --> 00:26:07.000
Robespierre of America and
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:08.180
people setting up liberty
00:26:08.220 --> 00:26:10.340
polls and doing other things,
00:26:10.421 --> 00:26:12.342
which seem to be not simply, hey,
00:26:12.362 --> 00:26:13.442
we don't like this tax,
00:26:13.521 --> 00:26:15.103
but let's get rid of all authority.
00:26:15.623 --> 00:26:15.863
Right.
00:26:16.522 --> 00:26:18.083
Yeah, it's not really about whiskey,
00:26:18.284 --> 00:26:18.824
you know, which is...
00:26:20.525 --> 00:26:21.566
The curious thing about the
00:26:21.605 --> 00:26:22.405
name of the event,
00:26:22.465 --> 00:26:23.527
it's about sovereignty.
00:26:23.586 --> 00:26:24.968
It's about do we have to
00:26:25.048 --> 00:26:26.229
follow the rules even if we
00:26:26.269 --> 00:26:26.888
don't like them?
00:26:27.549 --> 00:26:28.369
And those are the big
00:26:28.430 --> 00:26:29.750
questions that Americans
00:26:29.770 --> 00:26:30.571
deal with all the time.
00:26:31.092 --> 00:26:32.452
And I think this book, I think,
00:26:32.472 --> 00:26:33.493
hit on that nerve.
00:26:33.913 --> 00:26:34.713
It's done very well.
00:26:34.733 --> 00:26:35.674
I'm very grateful for it.
00:26:36.836 --> 00:26:38.436
It's hit that nerve in kind
00:26:38.457 --> 00:26:39.217
of the world we live in
00:26:39.277 --> 00:26:40.458
today for that same reason.
00:26:41.626 --> 00:26:41.886
Yeah,
00:26:42.207 --> 00:26:43.167
and then you have people like
00:26:43.327 --> 00:26:45.048
Gallatin and Finley weighing,
00:26:46.690 --> 00:26:48.230
so what happens if this
00:26:48.311 --> 00:26:49.652
area does secede or if we
00:26:49.672 --> 00:26:51.252
don't have to follow the rules?
00:26:51.334 --> 00:26:53.194
And if Washington shows he
00:26:53.255 --> 00:26:55.016
can't enforce the law in a
00:26:55.076 --> 00:26:56.416
place that doesn't want
00:26:56.457 --> 00:26:58.238
this particular law enforced?
00:26:58.778 --> 00:26:59.959
We understand these folks in
00:26:59.999 --> 00:27:01.019
western Pennsylvania know
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:02.980
they're going to be outvoted in Congress,
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:04.281
but then what's the alternative?
00:27:04.301 --> 00:27:05.123
And you make the point this
00:27:05.163 --> 00:27:06.983
is the largest insurrection
00:27:07.044 --> 00:27:08.224
like this until 1861 when
00:27:08.265 --> 00:27:10.665
South Carolina was seceded.
00:27:10.787 --> 00:27:11.267
Absolutely.
00:27:12.528 --> 00:27:12.788
You know,
00:27:12.847 --> 00:27:16.070
it's it's a it's a really it's a
00:27:16.111 --> 00:27:16.991
really compelling thing.
00:27:17.031 --> 00:27:17.531
Like you said,
00:27:17.672 --> 00:27:19.433
it's the it's the it's one
00:27:19.453 --> 00:27:20.515
of the great crises of
00:27:20.595 --> 00:27:22.396
Washington's presidency of many.
00:27:23.917 --> 00:27:24.618
It's one of many
00:27:25.078 --> 00:27:26.240
simultaneous military
00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:28.061
expeditions going on at the same time.
00:27:28.561 --> 00:27:29.643
But it's not just a Western
00:27:29.682 --> 00:27:30.763
Pennsylvania event.
00:27:31.003 --> 00:27:31.223
I mean,
00:27:31.243 --> 00:27:32.826
it's the most it's the most
00:27:32.965 --> 00:27:33.547
venomous here.
00:27:34.166 --> 00:27:35.008
because I think they have
00:27:35.028 --> 00:27:36.950
the greatest you know the
00:27:36.990 --> 00:27:37.851
greatest investment in
00:27:37.911 --> 00:27:39.792
whiskey overall yeah but in
00:27:39.853 --> 00:27:40.874
kentucky the federal
00:27:40.913 --> 00:27:42.494
government saw similar
00:27:42.836 --> 00:27:44.257
resistance and they deemed
00:27:44.277 --> 00:27:45.598
the law unenforceable there
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:48.080
like just even try um
00:27:48.582 --> 00:27:49.702
people forget the largest
00:27:49.742 --> 00:27:51.704
whiskey distiller in america was
00:27:52.125 --> 00:27:54.826
President Washington at the time.
00:27:55.367 --> 00:27:56.288
There were people that were
00:27:56.367 --> 00:27:57.388
following the rules here
00:27:57.409 --> 00:27:59.109
and paying that tax,
00:27:59.171 --> 00:28:00.451
but there was a unique
00:28:00.491 --> 00:28:01.491
collusion of events in
00:28:01.531 --> 00:28:02.573
Western Pennsylvania,
00:28:02.593 --> 00:28:04.394
specifically in Western Virginia.
00:28:04.414 --> 00:28:05.255
I want to stress that.
00:28:06.076 --> 00:28:07.576
That made it the worst here.
00:28:07.616 --> 00:28:08.337
There was, of course,
00:28:09.097 --> 00:28:10.739
the Indian War on the frontier.
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:12.540
Remember,
00:28:12.560 --> 00:28:14.221
the British are still posted up
00:28:14.261 --> 00:28:15.462
in the Northwest Territory.
00:28:15.502 --> 00:28:16.364
They haven't left yet.
00:28:17.028 --> 00:28:18.348
The Spanish have closed the
00:28:18.409 --> 00:28:20.290
Ohio River to commerce.
00:28:20.830 --> 00:28:21.751
So farmers, again,
00:28:21.811 --> 00:28:23.212
are feeling the pressure from that.
00:28:23.913 --> 00:28:26.115
And when you factor those three things in,
00:28:26.256 --> 00:28:26.455
you know,
00:28:26.476 --> 00:28:27.777
the whiskey rebellion is just
00:28:27.817 --> 00:28:31.400
sort of what finally breaks the dam.
00:28:31.560 --> 00:28:34.323
Too many pressures at once that boil over.
00:28:35.483 --> 00:28:38.987
So do these rebels ultimately get
00:28:39.914 --> 00:28:41.618
what they want or are they
00:28:41.679 --> 00:28:42.941
completely suppressed?
00:28:42.981 --> 00:28:45.165
The thing about the tax on
00:28:45.205 --> 00:28:47.049
whiskey as the thing that
00:28:47.089 --> 00:28:48.112
really motivates them or
00:28:48.291 --> 00:28:49.976
the thing that pushes them to this point.
00:28:51.121 --> 00:28:51.221
Well,
00:28:51.240 --> 00:28:52.681
there's a short term and a long term.
00:28:53.561 --> 00:28:54.342
In the short term,
00:28:54.461 --> 00:28:55.142
the people that were
00:28:55.182 --> 00:28:56.442
involved in the rebellion
00:28:56.541 --> 00:28:58.442
pay a pretty hefty penalty.
00:28:59.063 --> 00:29:00.863
They literally pay that in fines.
00:29:00.923 --> 00:29:02.523
Some of them lose their livelihoods,
00:29:02.584 --> 00:29:03.804
lose their homes and farms.
00:29:04.163 --> 00:29:05.163
Some of them are arrested.
00:29:05.163 --> 00:29:08.065
35 men, including Herman Husband,
00:29:08.085 --> 00:29:08.664
who we mentioned,
00:29:09.144 --> 00:29:09.846
will be locked in the
00:29:09.885 --> 00:29:11.086
Walnut Street prison in
00:29:11.125 --> 00:29:12.506
Philadelphia right by
00:29:12.746 --> 00:29:14.686
Independence Hall for a year.
00:29:14.707 --> 00:29:16.186
And Husband will be treated
00:29:16.227 --> 00:29:17.386
so badly there he'll die
00:29:17.406 --> 00:29:18.907
about a week after release.
00:29:20.367 --> 00:29:22.470
So he'll pay the price there, of course.
00:29:23.430 --> 00:29:25.191
The way it's resolved, however, though,
00:29:25.852 --> 00:29:28.113
is that it becomes the real
00:29:28.252 --> 00:29:30.474
fodder for president or at the time,
00:29:31.275 --> 00:29:32.195
Vice President Thomas
00:29:32.256 --> 00:29:33.737
Jefferson's presidential run.
00:29:34.356 --> 00:29:35.317
He'll say this event.
00:29:35.778 --> 00:29:38.099
is the ultimate in federal overreach,
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:39.800
the ultimate in abuse of power.
00:29:40.840 --> 00:29:41.981
You've been led by the hand
00:29:42.021 --> 00:29:43.522
enough by men like Hamilton
00:29:43.583 --> 00:29:45.844
and Adams that's turned the
00:29:45.884 --> 00:29:46.964
reins over to someone who
00:29:46.984 --> 00:29:48.605
will give the power back to you.
00:29:49.046 --> 00:29:50.086
And that's actually where we
00:29:50.106 --> 00:29:52.188
get the name Whiskey Rebellion.
00:29:53.429 --> 00:29:54.609
Because Jefferson will call
00:29:54.650 --> 00:29:55.589
it what everyone called it,
00:29:55.711 --> 00:29:57.152
the Western insurrection.
00:29:58.353 --> 00:30:01.414
And Hamilton, in an effort to minimize it,
00:30:01.555 --> 00:30:02.695
will say, well, that, you know,
00:30:02.715 --> 00:30:03.777
I'm paraphrasing, of course,
00:30:04.317 --> 00:30:05.778
that really wasn't an insurrection.
00:30:05.818 --> 00:30:07.380
That was just a little
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.563
whiskey rebellion is what he said.
00:30:10.623 --> 00:30:11.943
And 230 years later, you know,
00:30:11.983 --> 00:30:14.905
that political spin is still taking hold.
00:30:14.945 --> 00:30:15.366
I mean,
00:30:15.386 --> 00:30:17.288
the book is called The Whiskey Rebellion.
00:30:18.528 --> 00:30:19.509
Jefferson will be the one
00:30:19.529 --> 00:30:23.737
that does strike down the law in 1802.
00:30:23.737 --> 00:30:25.140
And we think about the song
00:30:25.180 --> 00:30:26.141
about Copper Kettle,
00:30:26.261 --> 00:30:28.505
and my granddad made whiskey,
00:30:28.566 --> 00:30:30.067
my granddaddy made it too.
00:30:30.167 --> 00:30:32.010
We haven't paid no whiskey tax since 1792.
00:30:32.010 --> 00:30:32.372
Yes, right.
00:30:35.391 --> 00:30:36.132
We're talking with Brady
00:30:36.192 --> 00:30:37.451
Kreitzer about his book,
00:30:37.511 --> 00:30:38.432
The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:30:38.472 --> 00:30:39.432
A Distilled History of an
00:30:39.452 --> 00:30:40.233
American Crisis.
00:30:40.653 --> 00:30:41.555
And one of the things you do
00:30:41.595 --> 00:30:42.494
really nicely in the book
00:30:42.595 --> 00:30:44.236
is tell us what we can see
00:30:44.316 --> 00:30:45.856
if we go to any of these
00:30:45.957 --> 00:30:47.377
places that you mentioned.
00:30:47.397 --> 00:30:47.538
I mean,
00:30:47.557 --> 00:30:49.038
you do have a great map in the book,
00:30:49.459 --> 00:30:50.279
but then thinking about
00:30:50.339 --> 00:30:51.680
what the area looked like then,
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:52.740
what it looks like now,
00:30:52.800 --> 00:30:53.461
it's one of the great,
00:30:54.521 --> 00:30:55.742
great things about doing history,
00:30:55.762 --> 00:30:56.542
but also one of the real
00:30:56.583 --> 00:30:59.424
challenges when the landscapes change.
00:31:00.244 --> 00:31:01.566
It's, you know,
00:31:02.337 --> 00:31:05.261
Preservation here in Western Pennsylvania,
00:31:05.281 --> 00:31:05.821
especially,
00:31:06.083 --> 00:31:07.944
always took a backseat to
00:31:08.105 --> 00:31:09.846
commerce and industry.
00:31:09.866 --> 00:31:12.029
Pittsburgh, it was the steel city.
00:31:12.509 --> 00:31:13.872
Before that, it was the iron city.
00:31:14.451 --> 00:31:15.493
And I always joke before
00:31:15.534 --> 00:31:16.595
that it was the whiskey city.
00:31:16.634 --> 00:31:18.636
That's kind of the progression we've had.
00:31:19.238 --> 00:31:20.999
but people lived with these
00:31:21.078 --> 00:31:22.619
places they lived in these
00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:24.060
places the oldest building
00:31:24.121 --> 00:31:25.602
in pittsburgh is the
00:31:25.622 --> 00:31:26.542
blockhouse which was
00:31:26.603 --> 00:31:28.544
attached to fort pitt that
00:31:28.564 --> 00:31:29.884
was a private residence for
00:31:29.924 --> 00:31:31.266
most of the 19th century it
00:31:31.306 --> 00:31:33.147
was it's they're practical
00:31:33.208 --> 00:31:34.167
people if there's good
00:31:34.208 --> 00:31:35.288
strong buildings they will
00:31:35.328 --> 00:31:37.411
live there um and what we
00:31:37.451 --> 00:31:38.191
have especially in the
00:31:38.230 --> 00:31:39.491
whiskey rebellion you know
00:31:39.551 --> 00:31:40.512
compared to a wonderful
00:31:40.553 --> 00:31:42.693
city like boston uh that
00:31:42.753 --> 00:31:44.355
has every bit of its
00:31:44.454 --> 00:31:45.576
revolutionary history
00:31:45.635 --> 00:31:46.656
marked out and at least
00:31:47.096 --> 00:31:48.917
attempted to be made
00:31:48.958 --> 00:31:50.419
available for the public to learn.
00:31:50.898 --> 00:31:52.140
Many of these places here in
00:31:52.180 --> 00:31:54.240
the West have been either
00:31:54.300 --> 00:31:55.461
neglected and have fallen
00:31:55.501 --> 00:31:57.762
into ruin or are just part
00:31:57.803 --> 00:31:58.844
of people's lives and they
00:31:58.864 --> 00:31:59.864
don't even realize it.
00:32:00.865 --> 00:32:02.986
Anyone who lives in, for example,
00:32:03.046 --> 00:32:04.987
Western Pennsylvania or the
00:32:05.047 --> 00:32:06.087
northern panhandle of
00:32:06.147 --> 00:32:07.608
Western Virginia is
00:32:07.648 --> 00:32:08.828
probably within 20 minutes
00:32:08.868 --> 00:32:10.089
of a whiskey rebellion site.
00:32:10.230 --> 00:32:12.131
And as someone who lived here,
00:32:13.031 --> 00:32:13.912
I knew where these places
00:32:13.991 --> 00:32:14.712
were and I thought,
00:32:15.765 --> 00:32:16.924
you know, it's not a guidebook,
00:32:17.025 --> 00:32:18.566
but I thought the
00:32:18.586 --> 00:32:20.186
information was too good not to share,
00:32:20.747 --> 00:32:21.747
because it's a real
00:32:21.807 --> 00:32:23.107
connection to kind of the
00:32:23.127 --> 00:32:25.127
down and dirty state of
00:32:25.228 --> 00:32:26.669
preservation and historical
00:32:26.729 --> 00:32:28.528
memory in a place that
00:32:28.568 --> 00:32:30.569
doesn't get a lot of attention,
00:32:30.809 --> 00:32:32.290
and certainly in an event
00:32:32.330 --> 00:32:33.711
that does not get a lot of attention.
00:32:34.991 --> 00:32:35.971
Yeah, it's true.
00:32:36.211 --> 00:32:37.653
We've been talking with Brady Kreitzer.
00:32:37.673 --> 00:32:38.893
I know we've talked about a lot.
00:32:38.932 --> 00:32:39.853
Is there more?
00:32:39.913 --> 00:32:42.733
Is there some thing we should tell folks?
00:32:42.794 --> 00:32:44.634
I mean, we want them to read the book, but
00:32:46.746 --> 00:32:47.726
Anything we've left out that
00:32:47.766 --> 00:32:49.807
we should address before we let you go?
00:32:50.527 --> 00:32:50.767
You know,
00:32:50.807 --> 00:32:52.028
I always just like to take this
00:32:52.107 --> 00:32:53.469
moment to remind people,
00:32:55.088 --> 00:32:57.250
things are not great, right,
00:32:57.869 --> 00:32:58.490
in the country.
00:32:58.570 --> 00:33:00.151
And anytime you ask someone
00:33:00.191 --> 00:33:01.291
that throughout American history,
00:33:01.311 --> 00:33:02.231
they would probably say that.
00:33:03.113 --> 00:33:05.594
But the Whiskey Rebellion was terrible.
00:33:06.054 --> 00:33:07.354
And we survived.
00:33:07.934 --> 00:33:09.595
You know, we have a constitution.
00:33:09.894 --> 00:33:10.355
It works.
00:33:10.536 --> 00:33:11.536
We have to believe in it,
00:33:11.556 --> 00:33:12.676
put our faith in each other
00:33:12.696 --> 00:33:13.436
and in democracy.
00:33:14.096 --> 00:33:15.397
And I think that's kind of
00:33:15.438 --> 00:33:16.219
the that's kind of the
00:33:16.239 --> 00:33:17.160
takeaway from the book.
00:33:18.201 --> 00:33:21.023
But it also underscores a larger idea that,
00:33:21.263 --> 00:33:22.625
you know, when the revolution ended,
00:33:23.165 --> 00:33:23.747
in a lot of ways,
00:33:23.787 --> 00:33:24.867
the work was just beginning.
00:33:26.369 --> 00:33:27.991
The war was what it was.
00:33:28.031 --> 00:33:29.794
It was difficult and it was victorious.
00:33:29.854 --> 00:33:31.776
But but keeping a republic
00:33:31.976 --> 00:33:34.459
is the real challenge of our system,
00:33:34.479 --> 00:33:35.519
but also the beauty of it.
00:33:36.657 --> 00:33:37.259
It really is.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:39.359
And we've seen over the last, well,
00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:41.701
seen over long history that
00:33:42.603 --> 00:33:44.184
even though it seems very difficult,
00:33:44.244 --> 00:33:46.105
toppling the bad old regime
00:33:46.326 --> 00:33:47.426
is easier than setting up
00:33:47.527 --> 00:33:48.448
one that won't be worse.
00:33:48.548 --> 00:33:49.308
And that's one of the
00:33:49.648 --> 00:33:51.131
marvels of our revolution
00:33:51.310 --> 00:33:52.711
is that the system that
00:33:52.751 --> 00:33:53.613
emerges and emerges
00:33:53.673 --> 00:33:54.574
actually partly through
00:33:54.933 --> 00:33:57.556
crises like this doesn't
00:33:57.635 --> 00:33:58.557
allow the regime to
00:34:00.422 --> 00:34:02.483
since then to lock people up for a year.
00:34:04.585 --> 00:34:05.786
Do you think Hamilton, by the way,
00:34:05.806 --> 00:34:06.787
do you think the Washington
00:34:06.807 --> 00:34:11.150
administration was overreacting?
00:34:11.469 --> 00:34:14.373
It is some difficulty with this.
00:34:14.432 --> 00:34:15.793
I think Hamilton had a vision.
00:34:15.914 --> 00:34:17.715
I also think he may have
00:34:17.735 --> 00:34:18.835
gotten the result he wanted.
00:34:19.635 --> 00:34:21.818
As early as 1792,
00:34:21.818 --> 00:34:23.498
if you look at the meetings
00:34:23.539 --> 00:34:24.260
and the documents,
00:34:24.721 --> 00:34:27.242
Hamilton is advocating military response,
00:34:27.804 --> 00:34:28.583
and he's advocating
00:34:28.623 --> 00:34:29.885
military response at a time
00:34:29.945 --> 00:34:31.206
when men like Edmund
00:34:31.246 --> 00:34:32.467
Randolph and President
00:34:32.507 --> 00:34:34.610
Washington are saying this
00:34:34.690 --> 00:34:37.411
is beyond a reasonable reaction to this.
00:34:38.992 --> 00:34:41.014
So there were things put
00:34:41.275 --> 00:34:44.737
into this law by Hamilton
00:34:44.757 --> 00:34:46.420
that I think were intended
00:34:46.460 --> 00:34:47.780
to be controversial,
00:34:47.820 --> 00:34:48.501
intended to be controversial.
00:34:49.001 --> 00:34:50.342
maybe incendiary to the West.
00:34:50.902 --> 00:34:54.224
But I do think Hamilton, like Washington,
00:34:54.266 --> 00:34:55.626
believed that Westerners
00:34:56.146 --> 00:34:58.487
posed a real threat of
00:34:59.409 --> 00:35:00.929
aligning with the Spanish
00:35:00.969 --> 00:35:03.411
more than their own country.
00:35:03.672 --> 00:35:05.713
And Hamilton viewed this as
00:35:05.773 --> 00:35:07.954
a way of maybe making them bend the knee,
00:35:08.054 --> 00:35:09.335
making them accept the
00:35:09.375 --> 00:35:10.755
sovereignty of the federal government.
00:35:12.778 --> 00:35:14.282
Hamilton was a very partisan man.
00:35:14.302 --> 00:35:16.184
He believed in the strength
00:35:16.206 --> 00:35:17.126
of the federal government.
00:35:17.146 --> 00:35:18.851
He believed in that a
00:35:18.891 --> 00:35:20.695
military response was justified.
00:35:23.003 --> 00:35:23.384
And again,
00:35:23.443 --> 00:35:25.105
the fact that he had such a
00:35:25.224 --> 00:35:27.666
personal attachment to the event,
00:35:28.286 --> 00:35:29.746
and he even kept a list of
00:35:29.827 --> 00:35:30.507
people he called,
00:35:30.527 --> 00:35:31.947
and this is a direct quote,
00:35:31.967 --> 00:35:33.128
he called them the big fish.
00:35:33.889 --> 00:35:35.849
He wanted to see arrested and hanged.
00:35:36.610 --> 00:35:37.809
And they were just, by chance,
00:35:37.869 --> 00:35:40.231
his great political enemies.
00:35:40.251 --> 00:35:43.632
So, you know, like I said, in the musical,
00:35:43.672 --> 00:35:44.572
I think there's a reason
00:35:44.612 --> 00:35:46.213
they glance or gloss over
00:35:46.273 --> 00:35:47.695
this event because it helps
00:35:47.735 --> 00:35:48.574
the story a little bit.
00:35:49.510 --> 00:35:50.753
yeah yeah it really does
00:35:50.813 --> 00:35:51.653
make him a different
00:35:51.733 --> 00:35:54.878
character and uh than than
00:35:54.898 --> 00:35:55.599
the guy we see in the
00:35:55.639 --> 00:36:00.063
musical so uh uh by the way
00:36:00.103 --> 00:36:01.025
were there any foreign
00:36:01.085 --> 00:36:03.327
responses did britain for
00:36:03.427 --> 00:36:04.329
any of the other countries
00:36:04.369 --> 00:36:05.811
take note of this or was it
00:36:06.211 --> 00:36:08.394
um you know that's really interesting
00:36:09.726 --> 00:36:10.606
Britain and France are going
00:36:10.626 --> 00:36:11.728
to view this very differently.
00:36:12.427 --> 00:36:13.907
And that's obvious because
00:36:13.927 --> 00:36:15.009
of the situation of what's
00:36:15.048 --> 00:36:15.768
going on there.
00:36:16.188 --> 00:36:17.068
The French are going to be
00:36:17.128 --> 00:36:17.969
sympathetic with the
00:36:18.030 --> 00:36:20.610
Westerners for obvious reasons.
00:36:20.670 --> 00:36:21.610
The British view
00:36:21.731 --> 00:36:23.451
Washington's response as
00:36:23.990 --> 00:36:25.672
correct and also too late.
00:36:26.612 --> 00:36:27.873
He should have sent in
00:36:27.914 --> 00:36:29.255
troops much earlier.
00:36:29.875 --> 00:36:31.757
And that was the general feeling.
00:36:31.777 --> 00:36:32.617
And again,
00:36:32.637 --> 00:36:34.059
you could probably gather why
00:36:34.099 --> 00:36:34.920
based on the kind of
00:36:35.221 --> 00:36:36.260
political makeup of both
00:36:36.442 --> 00:36:37.443
places at the time.
00:36:37.682 --> 00:36:38.043
Generally,
00:36:38.063 --> 00:36:40.545
the monarchists of Europe were
00:36:40.606 --> 00:36:42.206
supportive of what Washington did,
00:36:42.266 --> 00:36:43.208
because quite honestly,
00:36:43.228 --> 00:36:44.248
it's probably what they would have done.
00:36:44.728 --> 00:36:45.289
Right, right.
00:36:46.507 --> 00:36:47.887
We've been talking with Brady Kreitzer.
00:36:47.907 --> 00:36:49.289
We can keep going on all day, I think,
00:36:49.329 --> 00:36:50.228
probably talking about this,
00:36:50.268 --> 00:36:51.929
but we know you have a life
00:36:51.969 --> 00:36:52.610
to get back to.
00:36:53.849 --> 00:36:54.530
Brady Kreitzer,
00:36:54.590 --> 00:36:55.971
author of The Whiskey Rebellion,
00:36:56.010 --> 00:36:57.971
A Distilled History of an American Crisis,
00:36:58.231 --> 00:37:00.092
as well as many other books.
00:37:00.431 --> 00:37:02.112
And so thanks so much for joining us,
00:37:02.152 --> 00:37:02.353
Brady.
00:37:02.373 --> 00:37:03.773
It's been great talking with you.
00:37:04.246 --> 00:37:04.806
Thank you, Paul.
00:37:04.847 --> 00:37:05.806
I appreciate the chance.
00:37:06.768 --> 00:37:07.728
And I should also mention
00:37:07.748 --> 00:37:09.510
that you are featured in
00:37:09.570 --> 00:37:11.931
the new Fox Nation series,
00:37:12.092 --> 00:37:12.932
Young Washington,
00:37:12.952 --> 00:37:13.393
because you've written
00:37:13.413 --> 00:37:14.954
about major Washington's Pittsburgh.
00:37:15.394 --> 00:37:17.257
And as you said, you really are.
00:37:18.938 --> 00:37:19.958
This is kind of the bookend
00:37:20.059 --> 00:37:21.940
from the Seven Years War to
00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:23.001
the Whiskey Rebellion.
00:37:23.041 --> 00:37:25.523
That's a great period in American history.
00:37:26.925 --> 00:37:28.146
So thank you so much for joining us.
00:37:28.206 --> 00:37:29.545
And thank you to Jonathan Lane,
00:37:29.585 --> 00:37:30.206
our producer,
00:37:30.666 --> 00:37:32.927
and to our listeners around the world.
00:37:33.007 --> 00:37:34.186
So every week I thank some
00:37:34.266 --> 00:37:36.628
of you folks who are tuning in regularly.
00:37:36.708 --> 00:37:37.288
And if you're in one of
00:37:37.307 --> 00:37:38.367
these places and want some
00:37:38.407 --> 00:37:40.108
of our Revolution 250 swag,
00:37:40.128 --> 00:37:41.509
send Jonathan Lane an email,
00:37:41.949 --> 00:37:44.688
jlane at revolution250.org.
00:37:45.509 --> 00:37:47.809
And this week, folks in Halifax,
00:37:47.869 --> 00:37:50.369
Nova Scotia, Uint, New Jersey, Hingham,
00:37:50.389 --> 00:37:52.690
Massachusetts, Latrobe, Pennsylvania,
00:37:52.730 --> 00:37:53.451
which is actually the
00:37:53.710 --> 00:37:54.971
hometown of William Findlay.
00:37:55.411 --> 00:37:55.590
Great.
00:37:56.451 --> 00:37:58.793
mulga oklahoma pattaya in
00:37:58.853 --> 00:38:00.655
thailand tel aviv rio de
00:38:00.695 --> 00:38:03.840
janeiro takasaki japan in
00:38:03.900 --> 00:38:05.242
michigan detroit and ann
00:38:05.342 --> 00:38:06.804
arbor omaha nebraska
00:38:06.864 --> 00:38:08.385
louisburg north carolina
00:38:08.846 --> 00:38:09.806
and places beyond and
00:38:09.847 --> 00:38:10.849
between thanks for joining
00:38:10.909 --> 00:38:12.371
us now we will be piped out
00:38:12.550 --> 00:38:13.411
on the road to boston