Whiskey Rebellion

“ Of these were the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, and Dorr’s Suffrage Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1842, made of very poor materials, and smothered with a rude domestic bread sauce, which, more like a poultice for the outside than a relishable compound for the inside, soon took away the vicious appetite. Indeed, since the Great Rebellion which severed the long threads that tied us to Great Britain, no insurrections have ever had any success in America. ”

“ The odious exciseman,—with his portentous book in one hand, his unrelenting pen held in the other, or stuck beneath his hat-band, and the ink-bottle ('black emblem of the informer') dangling from his waistcoat-button—went not then from ale-house to ale-house, denouncing all those patriotic dealers in spirits, who preferred selling whiskey, which had nothing to do with English laws (but to elude them) , to retailing that poisonous liquor, which derived its name from the British "Parliament" that compelled its circulation among a reluctant people. ”

“ The Whisky Rebellion, 1794.%—One of the taxes to which the Republicans objected, that on whisky, led to the first rebellion against the government of the United States. In those days, 1791, the farmers living in the region around Pittsburg could not send grain or flour down the Ohio and the Mississippi, because Spain had shut the Mississippi to navigation by Americans. They could not send their flour over the mountains to Philadelphia or Baltimore, because it cost more to haul it there than it would sell for. ”

“ For twenty-five years I have sat on the bench of this colony, and I have invariably found liquor to be the chief cause of all trouble and serious infringement of the law. If an Indian shoots a white man, it’s been whiskey that has done it. If a white man shoots an Indian, whiskey is at the bottom of it. ”

“ The whole trouble arose, as do most troubles with savage people, out of whiskey. In defiance of the law, someone had supplied the liquor, having no regard for the consequences of his unlawful act. A life for a bottle of whiskey, that is the total of the lamentable affair. Almost every day some serious trouble is reported from one or other of the reservations. In every case the trouble is directly traceable to whiskey.”
On one occasion, two white men were brought before the Honorable Chief Justice of the Colony, charged with assaulting each other. ”

“ Nor can we believe even the more profligate among the class here spoken of, would purposely meet (unless indeed in an actual state of warfare) to fight, to gouge, and to tear each others flesh to pieces in the manner described; but that fighting, gouging, &c. might be the consequence of such meetings and carousings, we have little doubt, especially where whiskey is the common drink of the country. There are always a few diabolically wicked in all societies of men, rude or civilized; but it would be unjust to libel a whole community because of the wickedness and profligacy of a few. ”

“ Yet, strangely enough, that night the "Mother o' the Men" wept a storm of tears, the only tears she had yielded to in those long five years. For with its blessing of food the ship had her hold bursting with liquors and wines, the hideous commerce that invades the pioneer places of the earth. Should the already weakened, ill-fed and scurvy-threatened garrison break into those supplies, all the labor and patience and mothering of this courageous woman would be useless, for after a bean diet in the Northern latitudes, whiskey is deadly to brain and body, and the victim maddens or dies. ”

“ They object to the nineteenth century. They mean to smash the United States of America. And for all this they pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It surpasses all the jokes in Joe Miller. To think of those whiskey-soaked, negro-whipping, man-slaughtering ruffians, with a bottle of Louisiana rum in one hand and a cat-o'-nine-tails in the other, a revolver in one pocket and a bowie-knife in the other, drunken, swearing, gambling, depraved as Satan, with their black wives and mulatto children—to think of such ruffians prating about their sacred honor! ”

“ But when a Chicago minister hangs the American flag over his pulpit, fastens a large patch of black color on it, declares that the patch stands for the liquor evil which smirches the country, denounces wildly the men who spend for whiskey the money which ought to buy medicine for sick children, and then madly tears the black cloth from the stars and stripes and grinds it under his heel—then thousands rush out as excited as if they had heard a convincing argument. ”

“ Under the stimulation of the whiskey and the false promises of the leader of the mob to pay the party first to lay hands on Leslie Duncan the sum of twenty-five dollars, new momentum was injected into the chase and as long as the whiskey lasted it was energetic enough to elicit the praise of the most pronounced grouch among the men. ”

“ Murray’s health being drank, the War-chief proceeded by saying—that “Only a few years since, when the white men were bringing so much rum and whiskey into the little village where he lives, that it was making them all sick, and killing a great many, the chiefs decided in council that they would tomahawk every keg of whiskey the white men should bring in ”

“ To have the list of twelve hundred names that had been drawn read over and commented on all day by men who enlivened their discussion with copious draughts of bad whiskey, especially when most of those drawn were laboring-men or poor mechanics, who were unable to hire a substitute, was like applying fire to gunpowder. ”

“ Every man knew that his neighbor was probably an expert in the use of his 'shooting irons,' too, so there wasn't much percentage in starting an argument. Most of the scraps that did occur would never have been started, if it hadn't been for the influence of 'red-eye,' as the boys used to call the vile brands of whiskey served out in the frontier saloons. That whiskey bit like vitriol, and a few glasses of it were enough to make any man take to the war path. ”

“ Some of these cheap whiskies are as combustible as that Bourbon spirit of which a man once partook, and found so inflammable that—blowing his nose directly afterwards—he found his pocket-handkerchief in flames. Such whiskey, they say in the States, kills dead at ten paces, and no human being drinking it ever lives to pay his debts. ”

“ Red Cloud made another speech, in which he said, "The troops in my country are all fools, and the government is throwing away its money for nothing. The officers there are all whisky-drinkers. The Great Father sends out there the whisky-drinkers because he don't want them around him here. I do not allow my nation or any white man to bring a drop of liquor into my country. If he does, that is the last of him and his liquor. Spotted Tail can drink as much as he pleases on the Missouri River, and they can kill one another if they choose. ”

“ The whisky men must have their own way in this land of American liberty. They can ruin lives, break up homes, blight the prospects of the best people on earth and fill the prisons, almshouses, criminal insane asylums, brothels, graves of paupers, and doom souls by the multitude, and who cares? Who votes to put down the saloons? Who tries to save mothers' girls as well as mothers' boys, husbands and wives? Even the parents are overtaken by the demon of strong drink and sink into the most depraved conditions in order to satisfy their craving for alcohol. ”

“ As the printer remarked to Ben:
"I tell you, boss, there's not a ragged coat on a dirty back, or a pair of torn shoes on the bruised and blistered feet of the thousands of tramps that are rambling around the country like wild men, but whiskey is the first cause of it!"
"Then why don't they stop using it?" asked Cleveland.
"Give it up!" he exclaimed. "As well ask them to give up life. So long as the cursed stuff is made, so long will men drink it, and the government that licenses and protects it are responsible for the vagabonds it makes. ”

“ In states like Oregon and Washington, which went dry long before national Prohibition became an established fact, the people were obtaining anything they desired. Close to the border, there is plenty of bootlegging, endless daring adventuring in the liquor traffic, many a bold plunge over the line to bring whiskey and gin into United States territory.
And they certainly bring it. Meanwhile, the propaganda of the Puritans goes on—or, rather, the impropaganda; for it is not true that people are behaving themselves. ”

“ These men left home with great pretensions of temperance; even now it would be difficult to convince those left behind otherwise; but whiskey is used by our officers more freely than water, and that too is what they draw for the men mostly. Many a dark thing behind the curtain in this world. ”

“ The Americans were particularly outraged by the conduct of the officers and crew of the Modeste who defied the colonial law and dealt liquors in every direction, and certain unpatriotic Americans were detected in secretly selling watered whiskey to the Indians. ”

“ The frontier campaign against the whiskey runners in the south-west was undertaken by half the force, 150 men. In 1874 prohibition was established for the whole territory, with severe penalties for selling or giving liquor to Indians. ”

“ Culbertson that the Hudson's Bay Company supplied them all with abundance of spirituous liquors, and as the white traders on the Missouri had none for them, they would hereafter travel with the English. Now ought not this subject to be brought before the press in our country and forwarded to England? If our Congress will not allow our traders to sell whiskey or rum to the Indians, why should not the British follow the same rule? Surely the British, who are so anxious about the emancipation of the blacks, might as well take care of the souls and bodies of the redskins. ”

“ Two hours later it was blown again, and, looking from my window just as the first rays of light came level across the field, I saw the women filing out, with their hoes, and the ploughmen leisurely sauntering down to the stables, each with corn-husk collar and bedcord plough-lines in his hands. The passion for whiskey among the negroes seemed universal. I never saw a man, woman or child, reckless young scapegrace or sanctimonious old preacher, among them, who would refuse it; and the most had no hesitancy in begging it whenever they could. Many of them spent half their earnings buying whiskey. ”

“ Monday, December 29th, is one long to be remembered in Washington as the day on which occurred the first surrender ever made by a liquor-dealer of his stock of liquors of every kind and variety to the women, in answer to their prayers and entreaties, and by them poured into the street. Nearly a thousand men, women and children witnessed the mingling of beer, ale, wine and whisky, as they filled the gutters and were drunk up by the earth, while bells were ringing, men and boys shouting, and women singing and praying to God, who had given the victory. ”

“ How profoundly the whole course of the Prohibition movement has been affected by the desire of the South to keep liquor away from the negroes, needs no elaboration; it would not be going far beyond the truth to say that the people of New York are being deprived of their right to the harmless enjoyment of wine and beer in order that the negroes of Alabama and Texas may not get beastly drunk on rotgut whiskey. ”

“ Household scatterer, high-hope dasher, Death's forerunner, hell's dire brink; Ravenous murderer, windpipe slasher, Drunkard's lodging, meat and drink!
The rum vender's power is something enormous. We do not delude ourselves into thinking that the fight for national prohibition will be easily won. In many respects the liquor dealers will prove an enemy harder to vanquish than the slave dealers were. For slavery was an institution with a local habitation. ”

“ I looked at the darkey in bitterness of heart, and couldn't help thinking that it was all-fired mean, when a poor little sick soldier was not allowed to buy a drink of whisky, while a great big buck nigger roustabout had it handed out to him with cheerfulness and alacrity. But the orders forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquors to soldiers were all right, and an imperative military necessity. If the men had been allowed unlimited access to whisky, and the like, that would, in my opinion, simply have been ruinous to the good order, discipline, and efficiency of the army. ”

“ A council was called, and many and long were the speeches which were made, and much enthusiasm was created against the monster 'Whiskey,' and all his brood of compound enormities. Still every one seemed loth to move his arrest and execution. Finally, a {270} captain of more than ordinary temerity arose, and offered a resolution that each and every individual who should thenceforward dare to introduce any of the liquid curses into their country, should be punished with a hundred lashes on his bare back, and the liquor be poured out. ”

“ I had been informed that the place was one where whiskey distilleries abound, and the information proved to be correct. The distillery buildings were distinctly recognized by their smoking chimneys, creaking pumps, and steaming vats. The crowd on the shore had whiskey in their looks and behavior. Among them was one enthusiastic admirer of Abraham Lincoln. He was bloated, blear-eyed, a tatterdemalion, with just enough whiskey in him to make him thick-spoken, reckless, and irresponsible in the eyes of his liquor-loving companions. ”