series of disturbances in 1794 aimed against the enforcement of a U.S. federal law of 1791 imposing an excise tax on whiskey. The burden of the tax, which had been sponsored by the Federalist leader and secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton, fell largely on western Pennsylvania, then one of the chief whiskey-producing regions of the country. The grain farmers, most of whom were also distillers, depended on whiskey for almost all their income, and they considered the law an attack on their liberty and economic well-being. Organized resistance to the tax, even including the tarring and feathering of federal revenue officials, rapidly assumed grave proportions. Warrants for the arrest of a large number of noncomplying distillers were issued by the federal authorities in the spring of 1794; in the riots that followed a federal officer was killed, and a mob burned the home of the regional inspector of the excise. In a proclamation issued in August 1794, President George Washington ordered the insurgents to disperse and requested the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia to mobilize contingents of militia. The president also dispatched three commissioners to Parkinson’s Ferry, Pa., to negotiate with delegates representing the western section of the state, but the negotiations proved fruitless. On Oct. 14, 1794, Washington ordered the militia to proceed to the western counties. They met little resistance. The troops seized a number of people, most of whom were soon released for want of evidence. Two offenders were convicted of treason, but they were pardoned by Washington.

The so-called Whiskey Rebellion is important in U.S. history mainly because it provided the first real test of the federal government’s prerogatives and law enforcement power, including the president’s right to command the use of state militias.