Here’s a great little snippet of how Philadelphians have always been clueless about the rest of the state.
The Whiskey Rebellion is a tough topic of discussion for any American history course, but in Pennsylvania, folks tend to take a one-sided approach. Pennsylvanians prefer to side with the rebels, which is an odd thing considering the fact that George Washington and our founding fathers were the folks they were rebelling against. Most people that are aware of the historic conflict understand that Western Pennsylvanians rejected the idea of having to pay a tax on their whiskey, but it was so much more than that. The distillers in Philadelphia could afford to pay Hamilton’s excise tax, but the folks out on the frontier were literally unable to make the payments. The few citizens that WERE able to pay the “whiskey tax” were caught in the middle. It was a complex situation, so the oversimplification and hyperbole accompanying the stories describing what was actually happening in the west (by either side!) wasn’t helping anyone- then or now.
The writer of this editorial, published in the Philadelphia Enquirer on May 19, 1792, was wildly ignorant of the issues facing the western farmer and had an obvious bias against rye whiskey. The news reaching Philadelphia about the violence and the refusals to pay any excise were not telling the people the whole truth, so many “city folks” saw the rebels as nothing more than lawless, ignorant “back-woods-men.” The lack of understanding or empathy on the part of Philadelphians toward their fellow Pennsylvanians (or by Western Pennsylvanians toward their counterparts in the East) is no less obvious today in our politics and discourse than it was centuries ago. It’s a shame that after over 230 years, we can still read this article…and relate.
