Whisky Rebellion

Cultural  

1. An insurrection that broke out in the early 1790s in western Pennsylvania. Hundreds of residents took arms against federal officials charged with collecting a tax on liquor distilled at home. Federal troops then put the rebellion down. Occurring only a few years after the adoption of the Constitution, the Whisky Rebellion was an important test of the power of the new federal government to enforce its laws.

---

Example Sentences

The great Whisky Rebellion, as it is called, was suppressed with an armed force 15,000 strong in 1794.

From Project Gutenberg

Whisky Rebellion Cardhu is on the rocks with the Scotch Whisky Association.

From Time Magazine Archive

But complaints go back at least to George Washington's pardon of two leaders of the Whisky Rebellion, and have surfaced during campaigns to pardon Eugene Debs, Tokyo Rose, Jefferson Davis and Samuel Mudd, the physician jailed for setting the broken leg of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

From Time Magazine Archive

Americans have been historically disorderly in their response to leadership: a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had its counterpoint in a Whisky Rebellion in the backwoods.

From Time Magazine Archive

Washington did not let his qualms about state sovereignty keep him from reaching into Pennsylvania to stamp out the Whisky Rebellion.

From Time Magazine Archive