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.

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Example Sentences

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

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

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

The excise on domestic spirits provoked an insurrection, called "the Whisky Rebellion," in Western Pennsylvania, which was put down by the militia.

From Outline of Universal History by Fisher, George Park

One of the first effects of this controversy was to drive the excitable Scotch-Irish into a flame of insurrection not unlike the Whisky Rebellion, which started among them some years after the Revolution.

From The Quaker Colonies, a chronicle of the proprietors of the Delaware by Fisher, Sydney George