The first days of the newly formed United States were fraught ones.

In 1789, following the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, a new form of government came into existence. It had the potential to gain far more power than the one that had existed under the Articles of Confederation.

A strong federal government, with a dedicated executive, would lead a unified nation of 13 distinct states — at first, at least, though the number would quickly grow.

The previous government, for example, hadn’t had the authority to tax, so it funded the American Revolution and its other expenses solely by borrowing, leaving it more than $50 million in debt. The states were facing a total of $25 million in debt when their individual balances were tallied.

To find a way to pay off those debts and have some chance of financial stability in the future, Congress agreed to consolidate the state and federal debts and have the federal government assume the responsibility for the entirety, giving the states a fresh start.

The first taxes were tariffs on imported goods. However, by late 1790, it was clear those were as high as they could go without hurting the economy. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed a tax on distilled spirits — products like whiskey, which were created when farmers fermented their surplus grain and distilled the results.

It was the first domestically produced item to be taxed. Hamilton was thinking politically when he proposed taxing whiskey. In his mind, whiskey and other distilled spirits were luxury items, not necessities.

The American Revolution had kicked off just 15 years before, largely over what the then-colonists believed were unfair taxes. Taxes hadn’t become more popular during the war. So, the idea of a tax on something that some Americans already believed led to sin was at least slightly more palatable to many.

But not to farmers on the frontier that was Western Pennsylvania in the 1790s. Before the American Revolution, settlement was barred west of the Allegheny Mountains. In the years afterward, a stream of settlers trickled westward across the state, creating small farming communities along what would eventually become Greensburg Pike, the road leading back East, to Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital.

The grain those farmers grew, whether it was rye, wheat, corn or barley, was heavy, bulky and expensive to transport to distant population centers.

Distillation provided a nearly perfect solution to the problem. The liquor produced on farm stills in Western Pennsylvania was a way for them to sell their surplus grain and keep their farms afloat.

There were other problems. Larger distillers could be exempt from the tax by paying a fee based on how much they produced. But the farmers’ operations were small and they couldn’t afford those fees.

The law also demanded that the tax be paid in real money, which at the time meant gold or silver coins. Those were in desperately short supply on the frontier. Whiskey had often served as a medium of exchange for farmers, who were always short on cash.

Because they felt unfairly targeted by the tax, many of the Revolutionary War veterans who’d become farmers in Western Pennsylvania started to resist, arguing they were doing the same thing they’d done a decade or so prior, when they fought against the British.

Even in the heart of Western Pennsylvania, there was disagreement about what should be done. In September 1791, a convention was held in Pittsburgh that was dominated by moderates who hoped to reach a peaceful, negotiated conclusion.

A petition was sent to the U.S. House of Representatives asking for changes to the law. In May 1792, Congress reduced the excise tax by 1 cent. It wasn’t enough.

By then, violence had already begun.

At nearly the same time the convention was happening in Pittsburgh, a gang of men in disguise attacked a Washington County tax collector, tarring and feathering him. Another man sent out to serve warrants on those responsible met the same fate.

People began to repeat the behavior that preceded the Revolution. Liberty poles and committees of correspondence sprang up, and militias started to form.

Heavy-handed or flat-out incompetent attempts to coerce people into paying the tax went nowhere and heightened tensions.

No tax was collected for 1791 or 1792 in the area. But that didn’t mean Hamilton or the federal government were going to back down.

In Pittsburgh, wealthy planter Gen. John Neville was appointed tax collector. He was a large scale distiller and landowner who had originally opposed the tax before switching sides. When he tried to rent a room for a tax office, threats made the landlord back out of the deal.

Neville, along with other wealthy planters who served as tax collectors, were the original focus of farmers’ anger. As time went on, divisions grew between those who were willing to comply and those who felt resistance was the only path to freedom.

Neville was burned in effigy and in 1793, Benjamin Wells, the tax collector in Fayette County, was attacked and forced to give up his commission.

The final straw came in May 1794, when the government subpoenaed 60 Pennsylvania distillers who hadn’t paid the excise tax.

The subpoenas would have forced the farmers to travel to Philadelphia to appear in person before a federal judge. The trip was long, dangerous and expensive, and some were unwilling to go. While most subpoenas were delivered without trouble, the effort would spark a test of the federal government’s ability to impose its will on intransigent citizens far from the seat of power.

While violent, semi-organized resistance to the excise tax dated back at least as far as September 1791, most historians fix the start of the Whiskey Rebellion as July 15, 1794, when Neville and federal marshal David Lenox, who was in the area to serve subpoenas, was fired upon by a group opposed to the tax.

Neville fled to his home at Bower Hill. The next day, a group of 30 armed men surrounded the home demanding he turn over Lenox, but Lenox had already gone back to Pittsburgh.

Neville was one of the wealthiest men in the region, and the home might have been the grandest West of the Alleghenies at the time. An article on explorepahistory.com gives a description of the home.

“In the 1790s, Bower Hill was perhaps the greatest Pennsylvania mansion west of the Allegheny Mountains,” the article reads. “Built by Neville, it sat high on a hill, and towered over the residences of Neville's neighbors, most of whom lived in simple log houses. The interior was equally impressive. Neville had imported furnishings from Europe, carpeted every room, painted and plastered his walls — on which he hung more than two dozens paintings — and filled his library with a large collections of books, maps, and weapons.”

When the mob demanded Neville turn over Lenox, he responded with a gunshot that struck and killed a member of the mob. Despite their best efforts, the men weren’t able to force Neville out of the house, so they withdrew.

The next day, the would return, in far greater numbers.

A group of 600 men surrounded Neville’s grand home on July 17, 1794, led by Maj. James MacFarlane, a Revolutionary War veteran.

Neville had gotten reinforcements, as well, but not nearly so many. In addition to the enslaved people in his household, his brother-in-law, Maj. Abraham Kirkpatrick, had brought a group of 10 U.S. soldiers from Pittsburgh to help with the defense.

The two sides tried to negotiate. The women and children were allowed to leave Bower Hill, then the gunfire started.

After about an hour of fighting with no result, MacFarlane tried to call for a ceasefire when a shot from the house mortally wounded him.

In retaliation, the rebels set the house on fire. At the end of the day, MacFarlane and perhaps two other rebels were dead, John Neville had escaped, Kirkpatrick had surrendered and Lenox and Presley Neville, John Neville’s son, had been captured. All three would later escape.

MacFarlane’s funeral, held July 18, 1794, made him out to be a heroic figure of resistance and galvanized new, more radical men to try and persuade the crowd to follow their lead.

On July 26, a group robbed the U.S. mail leaving Pittsburgh in an attempt to find out who in the city opposed their efforts.

A military assembly was set for Aug. 1, 1794 at Braddock’s field, a piece of land near the Monongahela River in what’s now Braddock in Allegheny County.

There were 7,000 people at the assembly, and many didn’t even own land, let alone a still. The focus of the rebellion had grown beyond the whiskey tax and moved on to more general economic grievances the poor faced.

A group of citizens from Pittsburgh came down to negotiate with the assembly, some of whom were calling for the total destruction of the city.

The delegation expressed support for the rebels and agreed to banish some of the people whose anti-rebel letters had been intercepted. In return, the assembly agreed to simply march through the streets of Pittsburgh, instead of demolishing it.

The rebels did take some revenge that day, though. When they came upon the barns that belonged to Kirkpatrick, the man who had led soldiers against them at Bower Hill, they burned them to the ground.

Two weeks after Braddock’s Field, a group of about 225 rebels met at what’s now called Whiskey Point for a convention.

By the time of the convention at Whiskey Point, the federal government had already begun to react. President George Washington dispatched peace commissioners to the area to negotiate an end to hostilities with the rebels. But at nearly the same time, he invoked the 1792 Militia Act, which enabled a Supreme Court Justice to rule law enforcement was beyond the ability of local authorities and federal force was needed.

On Aug. 7, Washington issued a proclamation saying military force would be used against the rebels unless they disbanded by Sept. 1, 1794.

As the peace commissioners did their work, the militias of New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania were mobilized and told to meet in Carlisle, in Central Pennsylvania.

Meetings and elections were held throughout Western Pennsylvania. While many had come to the conclusion it was best to pay the tax, plenty of others were still in favor of resistance.

On Oct. 4, about two months after he issued the proclamation, Washington himself arrived in Carlisle. The next day, he wrote in his diary about attending church.

“Went to the Presbyterian meeting and heard Dr. Davidson preach a political sermon, recommendations of order and good government and the excellence of that of the United States,” he wrote.

He’d spend a week preparing and Oct. 12 would leave the city at the head of nearly 13,000 men. He remains the only Commander-in-Chief to personally lead troops while in office.

Washington led the troops to Fort Bedford, then went to Maryland to review the southern detachment of troops.

As the column had met no resistance on its march into Western Pennsylvania, Washington decided to have over control of the expedition and return to Philadelphia.

By the time troops arrived in Western Pennsylvania, hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who’d participated in the Whiskey Rebellion had fled into the mountains and hills, safely out of reach of the Army.

But in mid November, soldiers carried out nighttime raids, arresting 150 people — some rebels, some witnesses — and driving them over muddy roads into wooden pens.

Of those, 20 men were chosen to face trial back in Philadelphia and marched with the Army across the state.

In the end, only 10 would be tried. Only two, Phillip Wigle and John Mitchell, were convicted. Wigle had assaulted a tax collector and set his house on fire, while Mitchell was one of the people who had robbed the U.S. mail in July 1794.

Though both were sentenced to be hanged, Washington would pardon them.

He’d speak about that decision in his seventh State of the Union.

“The misled have abandoned their errors,” he said. “For though I shall always think it a sacred duty to exercise with firmness and energy the constitutional powers with which I am vested, yet it appears to me no less consistent with the public good than it is with my personal feelings to mingle in the operations of Government every degree of moderation and tenderness which the national justice, dignity, and safety may permit.”

The victory over the rebels seemed total, but on the ground, things were much more complicated.

Violent resistance stopped after the arrival of the Army, but opposition never did. Over the following years there were continuing convictions in state and federal courts for refusing to pay the tax, and finally, when Thomas Jefferson became President in 1801, the tax was repealed.