What Were The Causes Of The Whiskey Rebellion

The U.S. has just won its independence from Britain. A new form of government needs to be instituted. Out came the Articles of Confederation. Under the articles the federal government had very little power. It was quite clear the articles would not last for long. The next form of government would be under the Constitution. Now the federal government would have considerably more power, but now the problem of forcing the nation to respect that new found power became more prominent. By nature when a human is forced to do something they do not like or want to do they are likely to try some form of rebellion. This is very true in regards to the federal government as it was gaining power. One of these rebellions can be seen in the Whiskey Rebellion.
George Washington then had to assert the power of the federal government by putting down the rebellion with lethal force. Another can be seen in the Nullification Crisis. Once again the people believed the federal government had overstepped their jurisdiction, so they tried to rebel. This time the rebellion was a bit more peaceful, but it was still a rebellion against the federal government. Both of these as well as many other events all led to a rise in federal power. Post 1800 the federal government gained much ground in terms of power; however, this rise in power was not met without opposition of the people, for the Whiskey Rebellion and the Nullification Crisis were both revolts against the rise in federal power. Therefore, while the government was rising in federal power, it had setbacks in both the Whiskey Rebellion and the Nullification
They passed a state bill that more or less refused to pay any previous tariffs set by the federal government because the affected the south more adversely than the north. The government saw things quite differently. In 1832 South Carolina officially said, more or less, that if the federal government tried to collect any of the taxes from the nullified tariffs, South Carolina would effectively and immediately secede from the U.S.. This was an open act of defiance towards not only federal laws but the federal government as a whole. South Carolina didn’t believe that the federal government had the neither the power nor the right to impose unjust tariffs. For the most part South Carolina was right. Congress did not have the power or right, but the tariffs in question weren’t unreasonable. In response to that threat Andrew Jackson sent the a portion of the U.S. navy to enforce the tariffs. At this point South Carolina knew it could go to war with the U.S., so a compromise was created. This compromise would appease both sides, but the more important part is that now the absolute power of federal government is more evident. When the federal government faces South Carolina in the eyes it backed down. “Whereas a convention, assembled in the State of South Carolina, have passed an ordinance, by which they declare that the several acts