Soon after Americans ousted inequitable British taxation, Secretary of Finance Alexander Hamilton, hatched a plan to put the new nation on steady financial footing by imposing the first American excise tax, on whiskey makers. The tax favored large distillers over small farmers with stills in the mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, and the farmers fomented their own new revolution—a challenge to the sovereignty of the new government and the power of the wealthy eastern seaboard.

I found this book to be fast paced and while the author takes a pretty harsh view of President Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton he still presents a a clear view of American Culture in the Federalist Era. For a 'slice of life' in American History I think this book beats the text books I have mulled thru in the past ( )