The Whiskey Rebellion: The Intersection of Taxation, Insurrection, and Reality
1-Time Lecture | To register, please call us at: 305-919-5900.
When Congress, urged on by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, passed a tax on distilled spirits in 1791 to help pay Revolutionary War debts, it ignited one of the first great tests of federal authority. Farmers on the frontier, who turned their grain into whiskey for easier transport and even used it as a form of currency, erupted in protest. Violence followed—tax collectors were attacked, and outrage spread across western Pennsylvania.
President George Washington ultimately led troops toward the heart of the rebellion, marking the first and only time a sitting president took command of the field. Though the rebels dispersed before a battle could occur, the episode left deep scars and lasting consequences.
This engaging lecture by Dr. Rebecca Staton Reinstein explores the causes, drama, and legacy of the Whiskey Rebellion—an event that exposed the nation’s growing pains, deepened divisions, and helped give rise to America’s first political parties.
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Rebecca Staton-Reinstein
Rebecca Staton-Reinstein, Ph.D., president of Advantage Leadership, Inc. has served as an executive in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and as a consultant in strategic leadership. She is the author of several books on strategic leadership and planning. Her best-selling Conventional Wisdom: How Today’s Leaders Plan, Perform and Progress Like the Founding Fathers allowed her to draw on her lifelong passion for history to draw parallels between the founders and contemporary leaders. Growing up in Virginia, the daughter of history-loving parents, the family visited every battlefield and historic home and read every historic highway marker. She followed in her mother’s footsteps and graduated from William and Mary. While there, she worked for the Restoration as a costumed guide and was hooked on the 18th century. Her programs examine the Enlightenment, the transition from colonies to independence, the creation of the Constitution, and lead up to the Civil War and its aftermath. In profiles of the women and men who were critical in the development of the U.S., she helps her audience understand them as human beings with their admirable qualities and their flaws. “Because these people were humans and not idealized superheroes, we can learn from them and apply the lessons of history to our situation today.”