Tax Tea Parties? Whiskey Rebellion better analogy

36 °F and Mostly Cloudy
Complete Forecast

READ FULL EDITION

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Other Categories

Reservoir Blogs - George Thwaites blogs about fishing, hunting, conservation and outdoors

Tax Tea Parties? Whiskey Rebellion better analogy

Published Tuesday, September 8 2009 - (1) Comments

When is a Tea Party not a Tea Party? When it's actually a Whiskey Rebellion ... more or less.

At the risk of getting into hot water (!!!) for blogging off topic, driving past the "tax protest rally" held in Kingsport Monday reminded me of a promise I once made to my former E&H history professor, the late Dr. Lewis M. Purifoy.

One of Purifoy's pet peeves was that most U.S. schoolchildren are incorrectly taught that the Boston Tea Party was organized to protest a tax on tea. He made the entire class vow to correct our future offspring, should there be an attempt to indoctrinate them with this historical inaccuracy.

Setting us straight, Purifoy enlightened us as to patriots' real difficulties with the East India Tea Act. This bit of British high-handedness granted a monopoly on tea shipping to the East India Company while actually lowering the excise tax on tea. For the average colonist, the end result of the law was that legally-taxed tea from licensed British merchants suddenly became cheaper than untaxed black market tea which was routinely purchased from Dutch sources and brought into the country illegally.

Obviously, smugglers were unhappy with this development. But so were legitimate colonial businessmen like JOHN HANCOCK, who also stood to be ruined financially by the East India Company's monopoly on the tea trade. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Now isn't this a more fascinating glimpse into the issues behind the war for independence than tired old mistaken assumptions about taxes?

While all historical analogies are imperfect (a serious understatement) the Whiskey Rebellion might be a better one. This really was a revolt against a tax. Not only that, it was a popular revolt against one of the first taxes levied by the federal government-- a tax on whiskey that blatantly favored plantation owners and large distillers over family farmers.

Of course, the Father of Our Country Himself saddled up, rallied the troops and stomped the Whiskey Rebellion flat, after which independent distillers of an argumentatively libertarian bent moved away from Pennsylvania and set up shop in the wilder environs of Tennessee and Kentucky.

Discuss This Story

Be the first to comment: Sign In or Create Profile

Most attendees don't even know what they are protesting, much less what the Boston Tea Party was really about.

Lana Kennedy | 9/14/2009 - 4:15 PM - ( Comment

Suggest Removal )

To comment, you must register.

Comments are the sole responsibility of the registered user participating in online discussions. You agree not to post comments off topic, abusive, obscene, defamatory, vulgar, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned.

Click here to review our complete user agreement.