Journal Entry
August 25, 1794
Enough is enough! Last month some of my good neighbors tried to tar and feather John Neville, that dirty dog and trader who went over to the other side and became the tax collector for the government. His house was nearly burned down and I’m glad of that but then we heard that President Washington is leading 13,000 militiamen down here to try to end our rebellion.
I am a peace loving man but I can no longer sit on the side and watch my neighbors be killed and jailed. We are loyal to the state of Pennsylvania and we will not be bullied by the rich bankers and merchants who run this new federal government. What do they know about how hard a farmers life is? Do they care about us when our crops fail and we’re not able to put the food on the table for our wife and children? They don’t care about us. All they care about is making a dollar and getting rich and if they break our backs and spirit they simply close their eyes and tax someone else.
Three years ago when the government first placed a 25% excise tax on all whiskey, we thought that it would still be fine and that we would still be able to get by and make enough money form selling our crops. How wrong we all were. Some of my neighbors turned to violence and picked up their guns to shoot at those traitorous men who signed on to become tax collectors. I didn’t agree with their tactics because I thought, fool that I was, that the government would come to see how wrong this tax is and how it punishes all of the hard working, honest farmers in Pennsylvania and other states.
Riots have broken out at town and now things have gotten so bad that the President is personally putting on his military uniform and leading the federal troops down here to restore peace and order. Last night my good neighbor Charles held a secret meeting and we all decided to fight. This is an important battle because we are protecting and defending our rights as individuals to not be intimidated and bullied by those rich folks in the government. We are being taking advantage of. Our federal government has huge debts to pay off from the Revolutionary War and that’s why they are taxing whiskey. But the debts of the government are not our problem and we are all law-abiding citizens who just have a different point of view. We should be allowed to express our point of view without having soldiers march down here.
My two sons want to fight with me and I will let them. This is a fight for justice for all of us farmers who have been unfairly taken advantage of. My boys must learn to stand up for themselves and we will not allow any outsiders, not even the President, to tell us what to do. My poor wife is scared to send us off to battle but I have reassured her that it is better to die defending our individual freedom than to live as a slave to the rich merchants and bankers who run our government. This may be the last chance I have to write in this journal but I just want my family to know that I am proud and not at all afraid to face the federal soldiers in battle. We fought against British tyrants 20 years ago and we won. We will fight against the federal government tyrants and win again. I am sure of this.
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