Pardons not wanted by all offenders
Ever since we first heard about the Iran-Contra affair and Col. Oliver North, folks around the country’s level of guilt or innocence, and whether or not he should receive a presidential pardon.
Presidential pardons are not new — James Madison pardoned Jean Laffitte and all his pirates who could prove they had fought with Andy Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans; Warren Harding pardoned labor leader and socialist Eugene Debs, who was imprisoned for outspoken opposition to World War I; President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for crimes he may have committed, and Jimmy Carter supposedly pardoned more people than any other president. But it was President George Washington who established the precedent of pardons in 1794 — over the question of a person’s right to sell whiskey.
In 1791, the new federal government passed what was known as the Excise Act, which put a heavy tax on the eastern region’s most profitable product: rye whiskey. Grain farmers in the four western counties of Pennsylvania angrily objected to the tax and the so-called Whiskey Rebellion began. Unable to get legal help to block the tax, the farmers turned to violence that lasted several more years. These farmers, on the border of a new country, simply thought the government was unfair and believed their only recourse was to take the law into their own hands.
Government representatives tried, without success, to reason with the farmers during a meeting in May 1792. After the violence continued, but on Aug. 14, 1794, a convention of 200 delegates representing the western counties of Pennsylvania and one county in Virginia, again met with federal representatives. It was this meeting, at Parkinson’s Ferry on the Monongahela River, where the first presidential pardon was offered — general amnesty, or forgiveness, for those involved in the rebellion.
Refusing to be pardoned for actions he deemed justified, the leader of the rebellion, David Bradford, moved a large force of farmers against the local tax collector, Gen. John Neville. In a furious fight, Neville’s home was burned and several men killed and injured. Defiantly, Bradford’s group then marched on Pittsburgh, but Washington federalized the state militia and sent 14,000 troops into the rebellious counties. Under the command of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the militia wiped out most of the farmers, capturing more than 20 and sending the leaders into hiding.
Bradford and several other prominent farmers left the area and began a new life in the Spanish lands of Mississippi. Their struggle for survival is another interesting story. Of the 20 farmers captured, only two were convicted and that was for treason against the government. They were quickly pardoned by President Washington.
The question of pardons also was hotly debated during this incident, but most people believed the government acted properly in quickly stopping the rebellion, then offering to forgive those involved. In addition to this first offer of pardons, it was the first instance in which the strength of the new federal government to maintain domestic tranquility and enforce laws was put to the test.
If we look closely, Col. North and the federal government is again testing those laws.
Alex Taylor’s column on crime appears Tuesdays in The Times.
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