Today we cover the last blow in the American Revolution’s Thermidor:  the Whiskey Rebellion of the early 1790s.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• Raising more questions about what history really is and what most historians really do, using Bentley Little’s short story “The Washingtonians” (which was also adapted into an episode of the TV series Masters of Horror), a story that CJ thinks has direct relevance to the Dangerous History Podcast in general, and to this episode in particular
• The long history of anti-excise sentiment in the Anglo-American world
• The origin of Alexander Hamilton’s excise tax on whiskey
• The grievances that many Westerners had regarding this tax, and a variety of other issues
• Anger on the part of many Westerners (especially the poor), culminating in rebellion
• The crackdown in Western Pennsylvania
• The troubling & somewhat ambiguous aftermath & legacy of this rebellion, and how it fits into the Revolution/Thermidor framework outlined last episode

Internal Links

• DHP Episode 0057:  Banksters & Control Freaks
• DHP Episode 0065:  Revolutionary Aftershocks Part I:  Shays’ Rebellion

External Links

• A great piece at ZeroGov about the links between mountainous terrain and liberty – it’s no coincidence that resistance to the Whiskey Tax was mostly in highland areas
• Stefan Molyneux’s “The Truth About George Washington”

Every revolution produces people (generally of the lower ranks within the revolutionary faction) who take the rhetoric & supposed ideology of the revolution at face value and expect that rhetoric & ideology to actually apply to them.  But every revolution also produces people (generally of the elite within the revolutionary faction) who really just want to be the “new boss” and, as a result, are often willing to blatantly violate the stated ideals of the revolution they were ostensibly leading.

Here we see this phenomenon in regards to the aftermath of the American Revolution, and two oft-overlooked ‘rebellions’ in early post-Independence History — Shays’ Rebellion of the 1780s and the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s.  This episode will cover Shays’ Rebellion, and next episode will cover the Whiskey Rebellion.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• The concept of Thermidor and how the things we’re talking about in this episode (plus the writing & ratification of the Constitution, which we’re not getting into in great detail here, & the Whiskey a Rebellion we’re covering next time) constituted Thermidor for the (partial as it was) American Revolution
• Shays’ Rebellion, from its origins through its suppression and aftermath
• How the Rebellion added impetus to those pushing for a bigger, stronger federal government (eventually called “Federalists”) and how the Federalists’ victory with the US Constitution set the stage for the next Revolutionary Aftershock, the Whiskey Rebellion, which we’ll cover next episode

External Links

• Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 letter to William Smith from which we get the famous “tree of liberty” quote

Finally -we wrap up our American Revolution coverage with a hodepodge grab-bag of thoughts & observations on the Revolution, what it was really about, how revolutionary it really was, and lessons we can learn from it today.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• Patriotism vs Nationalism
• Why you should avoid hero-worship
• Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
• Winning battles vs winning wars
• Well-armed populations are harder to oppress
• Decentralization as a strength, not a weakness
• An extended exploration of whether or not the American Revolution was really a revolution — to which CJ argues there’s not a clear-cut answer — and a suggestion as to how present-day radicals for freedom should see the American Revolution

Internal Links

• DHP Ep. 59 (see the comments referred to in this episode)
• DHP Ep. 54 (“Three Leftist Historians Every Libertarian Should Read” – referenced in this episode in regard to William Appleman Williams’ America Confronts a Revolutionary World)

External Links

• “Kill Your Heroes” by AWOLNation
• “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who (Live Version- It’s always great to watch Pete Townsend do his power chord calisthenics!)
• The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776
• The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780