The main cause of the Whiskey Rebellion was the implementation of an excise tax on whiskey by the newly formed United States government in 1791. This tax was part of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's plan to help alleviate the national debt incurred during the American Revolutionary War. The tax particularly affected farmers in western Pennsylvania who relied on distilling surplus grain into whiskey as a means of trade and currency. These farmers felt that the tax unfairly targeted them and represented a continuation of the perceived economic oppression they had experienced under British rule. They staged protests, refused to pay the tax, and even resorted to violence, leading to the eventual uprising known as the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.
