honor, not necessarily to engage in gun play and not necessarily to kill your opponent. and it's sort of counterintuitive but true. the point of a duel is to prove that you are willing to die for your honor. you don't need to have a gun in your hand to prove that. you newest need to prove you are willing to duel and even on a duelling ground you are not trying to kill your opponent. you're trying to prove that you are brave enough to be there and take part, willing to die for your honor. once you understand in this way and the all of the letter sending and negotiations of affair of honor you discover there were many more affairs of honor in middle america than most think. hamilton was involved in at least ten of these affairs of honor which are in a sense duels without gunfire before his duel with burr. in new york city alone, in the 12 years surrounding the burr hamilton duel there were at

least 17 other, many interrelated. so for example it wasn't a lone duel in and of itself but part of a larger trend. and when you look at all these political duels together you notice really interesting patterns. most of them took place shortly after an election. and there were deliberately provoked. and a common ploy was one man would call another a self-interested politician. and there is only one response to that sort of insult, which is you are a liar. and poof, you have a duel. it was very effective way of provoking. and many most cases the loser of an election would provoke the win ore are one of his friends into the duel. and what wore talking about here when looking at these duels. they were deliberately provoked and strategically timed. in other words many american political duels were kind of

like counter elections. someone dishonored by an election, by losing an election tried to redeem his reputation by an aristocratic contest of hon e a duel. in essence american political duels were deliberate attempts to prove oneself eligible for future leadership. to protect one's honor and prove oneself a deserving political leader. remember that idea as we turn now to the burr/hamilton duel. the year was 1804. burr was vice president oth to the united states but his national political career looking grim. aware he wouldn't have a second chance of the vice presidentsy and still ambitious for position of leadership he turned to state politics and decided to run for governor of new york. hamilton at this point was a practicing lawyer in new york city. he was not particularly politically active but he became for active when he learned that

the man he most distrusted in the world, aaron burr was running for governor of his own state bis state. by 1804 they had been political rivals for 15 years. both intense individuals and ambitious. and moved in the same social circles and went to many same parties and many of the is same frensds and sometimes argued legal cases as joint counsel. but according to hamilton there was one way they were extremely different. hamilton was extremely ambitious and there is no denying that. and he felt that he was guided by his thirst for honor and fame as it was understood in the 18th century, a desire to win glory in the eyes of the posterity by serving the public good. in a sense that meant self-interest because he wanted fame and glory but he felt the best way to earn those was through great acts of public

service. burr made so such claims. to many at the time he didn't seem to be bound by any grand political principles. he seemed to seize on politics of the moment to get things done. and many politicians at the time were impressed and sometimes a little shocked at this. he didn't seem to have as one politician put it, pesky political principles tying him down. he seemed to be incredibly useful person to have around in political battles or elections. this was terrifying to hamilton. burr was talented, dharming just as ambitious but in hamilton's view with seemingly no political restraint, no guiding star holding him back to. hamilton that made burr a dangerous man, someone who had to be stopped. so hamilton focused on destroying burr's goober na torl campaign. the roots of the duel were at a dinner party in albany new york. hamilton was there as was

another federalist charles cooper who described the party in a letter. and i'm going to give you a bad paraphrase here. cooper said you should have heard hamilton talk about burr over dinner. he said he was a dangerous man who ought not hold the reigns of the government and i could detail a still more despicable opinion. cooper continued but i won't. because letters tend to get stolen from the mail and printed in newspapers by political enemies and of course what hops to cooper's letter? it's stolen by an enemy and published in a newspaper. so that happens. it is public. burr loses the goober na norrial election. he was now publicly voted not good enough to be governor. he began to be desperate enough to prove he was still a good political leader.

why cling to burr as a leader if he couldn't offer you anything. no patronage, no influence. some supporters said this quite literally. as one put it he had to fight back. if he tamely sat down in silence what was the feeling of his friends? they must have considered him a man not possessing sufficient firmness to defend his own character and consequently unworthy of support. so to prove himself burr felt he had to redeem his reputation and this was the frame of mind he was in when they put coopers letter in his hand. they sent him him a better that included the five key phrases. you insulted, you said something despicable me, is this true or false, and apply promptly as i deserve as a man of hopper. so this was a threat. and immediately upon sivaing this hamilton would have known

he was now involved in a affair of honor. and in burr accused hamilton of saying something despicable but there was no specific insult for him to deny or explain. and for hamilton it was too vague. and how do you apologize for something so vague. hamilton response shows how torn between his need to face the challenge and defend his honor as a gentlemen and his natural desire to avoid a duel. trying to find his way out of his predicament he began his letter by debating the meaning of the word despicable which burr took as insulting grammar and he concluded by showing he wasn't afraid to duel if he had to. he wrote he would not be held responsible for hearsay and was always willing to face the consequences of his actions. in a sense not surprisingly burr

didn't well to hamilton's letter. he nothing of that sincerity and delicacy which which you profess to value. in other words hamilton was not acting like a gentlemen which is a highly offensive insult. so now hamilton was insulted and couldn't back down and burr felt insulted and more consistent on fighting and you can begin to see how things spiralled to their ultimate conclusion at this point. but before the duel hamilton had one final decision to make. he wasn't sure if he would shoot at burr to. hamilton shooting at a man didn't seem to be the christian thing to do and for days he agonized about this decision and finally the night before the duel he made his choice. he would not fire at burr. as he explained to his second nathaniel pendalton his decision resulted from religious scruples and could not be altered. hamilton was aware this would be

a difficult decision for people to understand. for example they might think he was being suicidal. so he decided to explain himself and defend his reputation one last time in a statement addressed to posterity to be made public only in the event of his death. and this is another of those documents that as a historian you thank the heavens for because it is a remarkable explanation of his feelings at this moment of climax of such a decision in his life. in his final statement, hamilton acknowledged all of the reasons why he didn't want to duel. his family, his debts, his religious and moral scruples, and his desire to live. he also explained why he felt compelled to fight. he had seriously insulted burr and he believed what he had said. so he couldn't apologize, particularly since burr had insulted him during their negotiations. but most fundamental of all hamilton felt that as he put it, "all the considerations which constitute what men of the world

denominate honor impressed on me as i thought a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. the ability to be in future, useful in those crisis of our public affairs which seem likely to happen would probably be inseparable from a conformity with plij prejudiublic prejudic particular" which is a way long way of saying hamilton expected a crisis like this in his mind and if he did not defend his honor he would be dishonored cast off and useless at the moment of crisis. not defending his honor would be self destructive, you could say in a sense suicidal. to be in future useful, to use his words, he had to defend his honor. so on july 11, 1804 hamilton and burr met on a duelling ground. hamilton was fatally wounded and

died the next day. and 210 years ago today he was laid to rest outside these doors. it was a tragic end to a remarkable life, a product of choices that made sense to him although they might not make sense to us. and that point, the fact that hamilton and actually every other founder made some choices that might seem flawed to us is where i want to close my comments today. because to really understand the founders and actually the american founding generally we need to understand and remember that they were people. sometimes flawed, sometimes selfi selfish, sometimes selfless and far seeing. to deny that is to deny the -- and i suppose you could even say the majesty -- of america's founding moment. these men weren't demigods. they were real people, not sure what they were doing. sometimes on their best behavior, sometimes not.

this human story of trial and error is the real story of our nation's founding. if these very human people could accomplish great things, perhaps future generations could do so as well. it is inspired their greatest hope through the future, the ultimate message that they hoped to impart. thank you very much. [ applause ] coming up here on c-span3, a discussion about pennsylvania's whiskey rebellion and other local uprisings against the federalist-led u.s. government in the 1790s. then a look at alcohol use in colonial america. followed by the 2014 freedom fest and a conversation with authors doug bandow and hermann pirchner. they dus cuss the ongoing conflict in ukraine. each week "american history tv" brings you lectures from

colleges around the country. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern. next, university of north carolina at greensboro professor watson jennison. he focuses on the whiskey rebellion in pennsylvania and the formation of the transkoeny republic in western georgia. this class is about an hour. >> so today's class is the political unrest of the 1790s. we have the notion that once the constitution was passed, everything was fine. but as we read for today, there was far more than what met the eye. what we saw was there was continued conflict. there were continued divisions within america that pit different citizens against one another over the fate of the revolution, over what the revolution should look like. over what the revolution was about.

there were different motivations for joining the battle against the british. people were opposed to the britt irk, but they could come together through that. what the revolution actually meant, this is where we see the divisions. dividing what had been not a united block, but one in which the divisions were not as clear. the discussion on the ratification, the drafting of the constitution. what is most important about our discussion of the institution. what did we learn from that. what are two clear sides that emerged as a result of -- yes? >> you have the federalists who support a strong central government. >> great. so what we saw on the eve of the

ratification and the eve of the vote for the constitution, people were discussing the document itself. there were deep divisions. if you're an american, you believe in the constitution. everybody believes in the constitution. but at this time in the 1780s as we saw not every american believed in the constitution. indeed some americans saw it as a centralization of power. we saw that some of these folks were what was the name of the group that opposed the constitution? the anti-federalists tried to mobilize forces to try to ensure that it wasn't passed. we do see that the constitution was passed and ratified, but it was in large part due to

mollify kags that was undertaken on the part of the folks who were in favor of the constitution. to placate the concerns of those people who saw the constitution as being something that would grow in size and take over power and centralize power. what the anti-federalists required was some sort of amendments. and these amendments were added on to the constitution and eventually the first ten became the bill of rights and they were ratified in 1791. so what we saw was conflict. conflict that eventually led to the passage and ratification of the constitution. but it wasn't as though everyone was on board. we get a sense of the divisions based on the ratification vote alone. which states did not vote to ratify? north carolina. we remember north carolina and rhode island, two states that said we're not sure we're in favor of this. now eventually nine states did ratify and eventually the

constitution would become the law of the land, would become official, through there were struggles. struggles over its ratification. not everyone agreed. now if we think about the constitution somehow the ratification of the constitution somehow smoothing out all the differences, what we read for today is it's clearly not the case. what we see is in the 1790s, many of the divisions, many of the concerns that people who viewed the constitution in -- these folks came to see this still as a problem in the 1790s. the ratification of the constitution did not do away with these divisions. instead they continued to manifest themselves. and we can see them manifest themselves in a variety of ways. we're going to talk about three ways today that are two clear examples. examples that highlight the ways in which certain individuals, american citizens decided that they were going to rebel against

the constitution and the federal government. in the 1790s we see two examples where rebels decided -- perhaps they decide to try to form their own more perfect union, their own country. one of these events takes place, or both of them take place in 1794. the first of them that we're going to discuss is the whiskey rebellion, which takes place in 1794 in pennsylvania. as we'll discuss, it's a far larger protest. not exclusively to pennsylvania. the second incident that we see in which the -- a group of citizens decide to rebel. they decide to oppose the federal government. this occurs in georgia. it's called the trans-oconee republican.

now these two examples highlight the divisions that were emerging, especially among groups in the west. the western parts of the states towards the federal government. these two examples, as i said, highlight continued opposition to the federal government. they said portions of the american public were not happy with the way power had been centralized in the hands of the whiskey rebels and the trans-oconee, rebels. on the one hand, it was about an excise tax, a tax they felt that was imposed upon them unfairly. for the trans-oconee republicans, what they viewed as the key problem to try to spur them to leave the united states is they didn't agree with the

federal government's ability to conduct diplomacy with the indians. in particular what they wanted to see was the federal government remove all of the indians of the southeast and expel them, push them west of the mississippi river. many of these rebels in the trans-oconee had fought in the revolutionary war and fought against the indian tribes that neighbored georgia, the creek and cherokee. during the war there had been brutal instances of combat, of warfare between the settlers in georgia and what we see as the indian tribe surrounding. after the war, after the patriots emerged victorious, what many of the republicans thought they should be pushed west and allow for white expansion, for american expansion. so these two examples highlight,

as i said, the fact that there are these divisions to centralize power in the hands of the federal government. though they are different, they both demonstrate the precariousness of the american experiment. both of them demonstrate. we from our vantage point we look back and we know that america is going to be this great power. it's inevitable. they didn't know that at the time. in the 1790s this was just an experiment by a group of people who are on the other side away from europe on the over side of the atlantic. much of europe looks on thinking this is going to fall horribly wrong. it's going to go horribly wrong. this new experiment they weren't sure how it would turn. as the 1790s unfolded, what we see is them trying to uncover, trying to shake the events. now to give us a sense, i want to start off just to give us a

sense of what kind of division we're talking about and how they manifest themselves. we're going to see a map here. we're going to talk about the whiskey rebels first in kentucky. the whiskey rebellion in kentucky. it takes place in the summer of 1794 but it grew out of a disagreement that went back to 1791 and emerged as a full-blown crisis in the summer of 1794 but the origins of the disagreement that would lead to this blowup, this flare of the whiskey rebels emerges in 1791 and connected to the excise tax, the excise tax. in 1791 alexander hamilton helped to push through what was, as the secretary of the treasury, he convinced congress to impose an excise tax on distillers. he convinced them to impose an excise tax on distillers of whiskey. he thought this would be one of the best means, one of the best means of keeping the nation together. he devised this plan as a mean

to keep the nation united. he believed that we had talked about how the states had gotten deeply in debt over the course of the revolution in an attempt to try to pay for the war. we talked about the inflationary spiral. we talked about how the currency had become virtually worthless. that the continental congress issued currency and it had fallen apart. we see a decline in value. in an attempt to try to ensure that the nation that the experiment continued, what alexander hamilton believed is if the federal government purchased the debt, it would help the federal government and also help the states by relieving them of their debts.

but it would also make sure that people outside of the government would have a stake in the government. part of the way he managed alexander hamilton managed to not ensure but devised a plan he would be able to get support from many of the people he believed were necessary to keep the nation alive, to keep it going, what he devised was a plan in which the currency would be paid back in its full credit. the value of much of the -- if you were a merchant or trader, you could go out and buy this currency for cheap. for pennies on the dollar. that's how much it was worth at this time. when alexander hamilton implemented his new policy that would have the states sell back their debt to the federal government, we see much of the currency increased in value tremendously. if you were smart enough to purchase this currency at a low rate to pennies on the dollar and the federal government was

going to give you full face value, it meant an increase in what you were going to get. you were going to get a dollar for the dollar that you made 70 cents on that purchase. what we see is that many of the people with money who were necessary to help fund the government would buy in, hamilton believed. he expected the creation of a new national debt would give creditors a stake in the economic stability of the nation. hamilton's program proved to be a boom to speculators, merchants and men from port cities. they accumulated large amounts of currency and much was purchased at depressed prices, which meant that the policy would bring them considerable wealth. now the whiskey tax, we can see how there is a shift in the people who are actually going to have to pay it off. it's the financiers who are going to make money off this deal. but the government as it pays it out, where are they going to get the funds to pay back this

money? they decided they would get it from an excise tax on whiskey. that meant that certain parts of the country would bare a disproportionate tax to pay for the government's investment, to pay for the government's debts. i brought this map up here to give us a sense of the kinds of, enlarge it, what we can see here is a map that indicates where there's majority federalists and anti-federalists. there's certain patterns that develop. we see certain patterns. look to pennsylvania, one of the places we'll see this playout with the concern of the excise tax plays out, we can see that it's very mixed. there are strongholds of federal support and strongholds of anti-federal supports and large areas divided. what we get a sense of from this map has we have been discussing,

there was no unanimity surrounding the constitution and this would continue to play out. people who had been opposed to the constitution once it passed they were not necessarily on board with the powers that would then be granted to the federal government. now, as i said, what we see is this new excise tax that is going to be imposed -- and this is really the spark that pushes the whiskey rebels to action. at first what we see is after the enactment of the law in march of 1791, we see that protests break out throughout the appalachian region, really from pennsylvania all the way down to georgia in the western section, the appalachians and west of the appalachians what we see are residents in these areas protesting. they're up in arms, many of these western farmers. the reason is that many of the folks that lived there relied upon whiskey production. whiskey production was a core part of what they did. now, many of these folks were

grain farmers. whether it was wheat or corn, they grew different kinds of grain. and what they did with the surplus grain after they had use what had they needed, they would make it into liquor and you would make it into liquor because it made sense. think about grain, grain is bulky and different to travel. it's difficult to transport. if you wanted to bring it to market, it entailed quite a bit of cost to put it on a wagon and bring it across. but you could distill down your grains into liquor very quickly and make it much easier to move. right? you could also drink it, as well. so there are these benefits that we see that come from distilling excess grains down into liquor. now, what the excise tax would have done would have charged these people, would have charged them, it would have imposed a tax on what they were doing. now, before many of these farmers had sup limited their incomes relying upon distilling

liquor but now they found they faced a tax. and the tax was equal to about 25% of the retail value of the liquor, about 25% of the retail value of the liquor. which meant that the profit that would go to the farmers pretty much evaporated once the tax was imposed. now, as i said, throughout the western sections of pennsylvania, maryland, virginia, north carolina, south carolina, georgia, all the way through these appalachian areas, what we see is there are unrest. expands into western part of kentucky and virginia. but of all the places where we see it really take hold the strongest, where we see the protests reach its most radical stage was in western pennsylvania. it was most radical in western pennsylvania. the opposition there was centered in the western section

of the state and the counties of allegheny, washington, fayette and westmore land counties. you have to know that it's western. western areas. we can see that in the western section of pennsylvania, what do we see in terms of the support for the constitution? it's mixed, right? pretty significant portion of western pennsylvania once we get to the other side of the mountains is actually opposed to it. this is before the imposition of the ratification of constitution. so, this is prior but what we can see is that these long-standing grieve answers. they continue to fester and manifest themselves. imagine you didn't support the constitution, now you have a new federal government which now is taxing you. what does that seem a whole lot like? >> who? >> it seems a whole lot like the british, which is what many of

the western protesters said. what they complained about was taxation without local representation in this instance. they didn't believe their local interests were being properly represented. they had no say in the passage of this tax. so, what we see is throughout 1791 and 1792 we see residents of appalachian who are opposed to the tax, they are protesting in a range of different way, many of the ways they were protesting was reminiscent of the revolution. we think about the various ways -- what are some of the ways we saw protests conducted during the revolutionary era? >> riots. >> urban, riots, land riots, urban riots, proud politics as they were also known. we can think about the ways in which they sometimes expressed their intimidation. think about what holton saw? what did ann holton see in such graphic detail? tar and feathering, right? we can think about the tar and feathering which was not something like we saw on loony toons. this was a brutal, brutal

treatment, a brutal punishment. so what we start to see are similar actions that had been conducted in the 1770s and 1780s, think of shea's rebels. we can see the similar kind of activity being mounted, slowly but surely in western pennsylvania. now, many of the folks who are engaging in this sort of dissent, this opposition, they were revolutionary veterans. these are men who had gone off and fought in the war, either served in the militia or the continental army and now they had come back home hoping to establish themselves, hoping to live life in the new republic they had helped to create. many of them now felt as though their sacrifice in some ways was being ignored as this tax was imposed. one of the militant factions, there are various factions within western pennsylvania, one of the more militant groups was named the mingo creek association. the mingo creek association. they led much of the organized resistance to the collection of taxes. now, at first what i said, what you see are the protesters followed the same basic script

that had been provided by the revolution. they even used the same kind of rhetoric in their demands and complaints. they organized two conventions shortly after the passage of the excise tax. and they did this in pittsburgh. they did it to make their demands clear. they wanted to articulate their demands. after organizing these conventions they petitioned the state government in philadelphia. they also sent a petition to the u.s. house of representatives. and for all of their efforts what they saw is that the federal government decided that they could work with the people. congress could work but they dropped down the tax by a penny, which was negligible by most of the opponents in their view. this meant nothing. it didn't change the outcome. what they needed was a serious revision. so, imagine we have these men in western pennsylvania who are up in arms, up in arms that their treatment to the federal government from this new tax

that has been imposed from far away with the federal government. so many of them, it smacked of the same sort of issues they had fought against. the same sort of issues seemed to be coming back. when the conventions in other kinds of protests failed to bring about the response they had hoped for, the resistance grew more intense and violent in western pennsylvania. the protesters at this point, they began to evolve into rebels. but august of 1792, what we see is that local leaders of the movement decided to block federal agents, federal officials from conducting their business that is from enforcing the laws. they made it impossible for federal officials to conduct their official duties in western pennsylvania, which included, among other things, collecting taxes. they made it so hostile, the environment, that the tax collectors were fearful of traveling in this area because it was known that their presence was not accepted. local residents also organized

themselves into committees of correspondence, like the committees of safety during the revolution. and they targeted those who favored or disobeyed the law. if you obeyed the law. excuse me. if you were a proponent of the law, you could find yourself like being a loyalist, tarred and feathered for supporting the wrong side. usually they were agents of the federal government, but you could still face intimidation if you didn't belief it was that bad a thing or obeyed the law. these efforts, as i said, included tar and feathering and tax collectors and authority. with little to stop them, they became increasingly brazen in their actions. the official in charge of collecting the tax in western pennsylvania, a man named john neble. he admitted that he could not go into washington county, which was the center of the opposition. he could not go there just to see what was going on for fear of his life. he thought he would get killed by these whiskey rebels that were growing in power, they were

growing in numbers and they were growing in their assertiveness. the conflict came to a head in 1794, in the summer of 1794, when u.s. marbles traveled to western pennsylvania to serve ritz to 60 distillers who had refused to pay the tax. these are men who said, no, we're not going to do it. so these agents of the federal government, these marshals went to deliver ritz telling them not only would they have to, if convicted, pay a penalty, they would also have to -- this punishment inflicted upon them but they would also have to travel all the way from western pennsylvania, they would have to travel, of course, over land all the way to philadelphia where the federal court was. this was not only -- this was insult to injury in many ways. it was one thing to have to pay the tax and be forced into it, but then to have to travel overland from western pennsylvania to the coast, meant an imposition, a hardship on these men. not only would they have to stop working but they would have to pay for themselves to get out

there. now, when the agents arrived, word quickly spread within these communities and very quickly what we see is a 500 man, 500 man local militia formed under the leadership of a former veteran, a former revolutionary veteran a man named jack mcfarland. jack mcfarland. so, imagine what we see here, the situation. we have these marshals who are trying to hand out these ritz to these distillers, people find out about it and they start mobilizing. and they mobilize to confront these tax agents. that's exactly what they did. led by mcfarland, they went to neble's house and they attacked his house. this is a representative of the federal government. and they attacked his house and a melee ensued. it in midst of this me lay, jack mcfarland was killed. to many folks who were living there he become a martyr to that movement. in the weeks that followed, support for these rebels grew among the distillers and among poor people, among people who

were landless and had anger towards the wealthy. people were coming together for a variety of different reasons because they viewed federal power as something that was growing too strong and proved positive was the excise tax. but it tapped into deep hostility that was there just simmering beneath the surface in western pennsylvania as society went through these changes. it wasn't only distillers by the end, it was also small farmers who didn't own stills. it was poor landless men, men who had grievances for one reason or another. at its peak, act 7,000 men formed this group of rebels. they were the core of this group of rebels. now, not long after they attacked the rebels attacked john neble's house, word reached washington. word reached president washington and he responded cautiously. he responded cautiously. he sent representatives to meet with the rebels while at the same time prepared to move militarily against them. on august 7th, 1794, washington announced with quote his deepest regret the beginning of a

military action against the rebels, a military action now against other americans. at the lead of a 13,000 man army composed of militia men provided by virginia, maryland, new jersey and eastern pennsylvania, washington moved to subdue the rebels. the first and only time an acting president has actually commanded the u.s. military from the front. we think about the president being the commander in chief. well, in this instance he was literally the commander in chief at the head of this army that was moving to the interior of pennsylvania to put down what he and many in his cabinet and many others in his administration believed was an insurrection. it was an insurrection. in fact, some of the people who were part of this rebel group, they were speaking act it in those sort of terms. they were thinking about leaving

the union, leaving the united states. contemplating radical actions. they created their own flag even just to give us a sense of their seriousness. they had their own flag, which they hoped to begin a new country, six counties, five counties from pennsylvania and one county from virginia would form this new unit. but this is among the most radical of the rebels, not everyone agreed with this. there were some who were more moderate. they were radical rebels who were calling for a break. now, after mobilizing the army, washington led the forces to the center of the state, as i said. by the time the army reached western pennsylvania in october of 1794, however, the

insurrection had disintegrated as words of washington's forces reached the rebels. this gigantic force of 13,000 men who was larger than the army that washington actually commanded for most parts of the american revolution for the war of independence. this was a larger army that he had under his command at this point than he had had during the war of independence. when the rebels heard about this overwhelming force they fled. they left. it didn't make sense to engage washington and the federalized militia. in the end, about 10 men were sent to philadelphia for this and put on trial. and two were convicted and sentenced to death but they were later pardoned by washington. so, the whiskey rebellion, what's the significance and importance of this rebellion? well, it set severe limits or at least the response of the federal government. it set severe limits on public

opposition to federal policies. in the early 1790s, many americans still assumed it was legitimate to protest unpopular laws using the same tactics which they blocked the parliamentary measures like the stamp act in 1765. by firmly suppressing this challenge to national authority, washington served notice that citizens who resorted to violent or other extralegal means of political action would feel the full force of the federal authority. what we see is a change. right? that may have worked in the 1760s. but the same sort of actions that they had acted upon in the 1760s would no longer be allowed in the united states. what we see is a change. now i would like to talk a bit about the trans-oconee republic and the trans-oconee republic is something dear to my heart.

this is something i ran across when i was writing my book on georgia. it was this episode i had never heard of. it involved a revolution hero much like we heard with mcfarland who decided he had enough of his country and was going to start his own country shortly after the nation had just begun and this startled me. this left me scratching my head. i had to dig deeper. what i uncovered was this amazing story. like the whiskey rebellion, the disagreement that led to the creation of the trans-oconee republic in 1794, the disagreement predated its actual emergence. it wasn't suddenfully 1794 the men decided we had enough and that's it, we're going to do something about it. instead, the origins of this disagreement between the federal government and these men from western georgia -- what's interesting here. i want you to see the map now. so, what do we see with georgia

in terms of their support or lack of support? >> very unorganized. >> very un -- >> unorganized. >> this here is indian land. this is native american land. i'll show a map. we think of this all being georgia. look what georgia claims. georgia claims all the way to the mississippi. they clearly can't do that. what they'll end up with is about this much. but in 1790, this was the extent of georgia. i have more maps to actually show many. but what do we see with the blue? what does the blue signify? huge support for the federalists. in fact, what we know is that georgians very much supported -- they very much supported the constitution. they very much supported the constitution. yet they found that their support eventually proved to be misplaced in the eyes of many of the georgens. so, as i said, in 1787, 1788 the georgens ratify the constitution once it arrived and seasoned it back and do so for a variety of

reasons. one key reason is that they have native americans that are surrounding them. they're also the weakest link. they're at the very bottom of the nation. they're vulnerable to attacks from spanish florida or attacks from the water and they also have large numbers of slaves. they're very vulnerable in georgia. georgia was one of the last states actually to participate in the continental congress. they weren't sure if they were going to join the party, but once they had joined, they were the first ones, one of the first states to say we want in when it came to the constitution. and it had to do with protection or the need for security. so, they were quite surprised when they found that in 1790 president washington signed a treaty with the creek indians, the same creek indians with which the western farmers of the georgia had been fighting for decades.

in 1790, washington, president washington, reached an negotiated settlement, a treaty with the creek indians. and he could do this because he had been newly entrusted with powers by the recently ratified constitution. and with these powers, he negotiated this peace treaty with the delegation of chiefs that represented some of the creek indians. this treaty would be contested later on, but it was viewed as legitimate by the president and his administration. now, the creek indians were the most powerful indian tribes of the southeast with a group of over 10,000 warriors. for decades the creek indians had managed to successfully play the various european powers off against one another and to resist defeat. and the creek held the balance of power in the region up until the revolutionary war. president washington understood that the united states having just fought a war of

independence was in no shape to take them on. president washington and members of his administration then, the treaty with the creek, this treaty of 1790 represented a major achievement. it freed the united states up from continued conflict in the southeast so that the nations army could instead focus its energies on subduing the indian tribes of the ohio river, north of the ohio river in an effort to expand the nations borders further west. now, this treaty that was negotiated in 1790, the treaty of new york, it was celebrated by many, many americans, most americans thought this was a very good idea. but there were some who didn't. and many of those who did not agree with it were georgiaens. particularly those men who lived in this area in the appalachians. now, you remember we talked about the proclamation of 1763 which had drawn the line down the appalachian mountains and mandated that settlers could not move to the western side of the appalachians. well, some of the folks who were

most in favor of creating a new nation so they could push west of the appalachians were indeed these same farmers from georgia. now, in exchange for peace, president washington had given up claims to land that were included in georgia's charter. so, when we signed the treaty in 1790, what he did was give away this land that georgians believed that was actually theirs. even though they didn't control any of it, they felt it was theirs. many white georgians felt betrayed by the president's actions. some called into question his right to do it in the first place. in the 1780s prior to the ratification of constitution, georgia's state government completed several treaties with the creek and cherokee indians

in the 1780s in which they made all sorts of land sessions. many of these treaties were done under fraudulent terms around fraudulent conditions. what happened with the ratification of the congress is that the federal government took over the power to negotiate with indians. so those treaties that had been made between georgia and the creek and georgia and the cherokee were nullified. they meant nothing. so the georgians found that this federal government now, not only was it siding with the indians in their mind, it was also nullifying land sessions that they had received, which, of course, made them angry. they were incensed that the president validated these agreements and restricted their settlement to the earlier boundaries east of the oconee river. now, this is a picture of what georgia looked like in 1790. all this land that we usually think of as being georgia was actually in the hands of the native americans. and what we see is that there was a line. and this line that you see

represented the border. what the rebels wanted to do was cross over the border. it's actually a river, the oconee river. they wanted to cross over the river and take possession of land that was -- that general washington or president washington excuse me had ensured would remain in the hands of the creek indians as a result of the treaty of 1790. now, the georgiaens had intended to use this land that was presently labelled as indian land. they wanted to provide war bounties that had served during the state militia during the war. without access to this land they were unable to fulfill its obligations and soldiers were forced to wait. their state, as i said, had been one of the first to ratify the constitution. they supported it specifically because they thought it would benefit themselves. now, instead of benefitting themselves they found that their participation with the