I feel somewhat conflicted about reviewing a work of historical fiction in the pages of Prometheus. After all, science fiction is about the future (setting aside alternate histories for the moment), the possibilities and wonders more so than fact and long ago events. Still, there are sf connections to the topic of this novel, even libertarian sf connections. If we look at L. Neil Smith's novel, The Gallatin Divergence, we see his entire North American Confederacy founded on the very idea of the Whiskey Rebellion. The events surrounding this very real episode in American history, early enough in the infancy of the American Republic that George Washington himself rode out to face the rebels, tend to be forgotten, footnoted on the way to meatier matters like the Civil War and Vietnam. The fact of the matter is that the events in the early 1790s relate in many ways to the current economic crisis, and virtually every economic crisis in the United States of America. Banking was at the root of the troubles then as it is now, and amid the banking rot lies the heavy hand of the state guided by favoritism and personal connections.

Davis Liss is a well-known author of historical fiction. In earlier novels he covered such topics as the South Sea Bubble in Europe, the introduction of coffee into the old world, and political upheavals in 18th century England. In The Whiskey Rebels he frames the action around the people and causes of the 1794 rebellion, but sets the action a few years earlier. Liss makes the book as much about ideas as characters. There are passages in the book that feed the very fires of liberty against central government, and although the doomed outcome is familiar, one cannot help but cheer for the rebels.

Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, launched his national bank in the summer of 1791, called the First Bank of the United States. Hamilton has experience with starting banks, as he launched one in New York after the Revolutionary War. This new bank was funded through the sale of stock, which led to major speculation in all the various US stock exchanges. Unlike current European nations, where stock exchanges tended to be centralized in a single city in each country (i.e. London or Paris for Great Britain and France respectively), several exchanges existed in the United States, in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. The stock sale alone would not fund the bank, and so Hamilton pushed his idea of increased taxes on imports of wine and spirits, as well on local distillation of whiskey, which was the primary cause of the Whiskey Rebellion.

At the center of the novel is someone not directly associated with the rebels, Captain Ethan Saunders, a former spy for Washington's army who lost his honor and status when accused of treason along with his mentor, Richard Fleet. Saunders, now a penniless drunk, has driven himself to his position through stoic despair. For money he seduces rich married women, and he almost dies when a cuckolded citizen sets upon him with armed associates. Saunders is rescued by the timely appearance of his slave, Leonidas, along with a mysterious Jew called Kyler Lavien. The latter is a ruthless agent of Alexander Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury. Lavien's mission involves finding a speculator called Jacob Pearson, who married Cynthia Fleet, daughter of Saunders' former mentor. Cynthia was supposed to be Saunders' bride, but when the charges of treason surfaced Saunders felt he had failed her and left.

Woven amid Saunders' tale is one narrated by Joan Maycott, who turns out to be one of the driving forces behind the rebellion, at least in early stages. Here the novel strays from historical events, but Maycott's tale is a compelling and personal tragedy that lies at the soul of the novel. Maycott had married a former soldier of the revolution. Because of birth order he cannot inherit the family farm, and must seek his fortune elsewhere. After a brief stay in New York City, the Maycotts are lured to Western Pennsylvania by the sales pitches of a speculator called William Duer. Duer advertises rich farmland for the taking outside Pittsburg in exchange for the chance that Maycott's war salary will be paid by the government. The Maycotts exchange one risk for another, only to learn their purchase was a mere lease, and a harsh one at that. However, they discover a way to make excellent whiskey, and see this as a chance to improve their lot, until Hamilton destroys their hopes yet again.

Hamilton's tax to finance his new bank fell on the production of whiskey, not revenue from its sale. When the whiskeymen heard this they were outraged. The government passed a tax which would ruin them; they make no money from their product, but use it for trade. Whiskey is their “coin of the realm.” In the words of Joan Maycott,

“What was immediately clear was that the tax would drive smaller distillers out of business and the only benefits would go to wealthy men back east and large-scale distillers … who had cash and could shoulder the cost. The excise had been promoted in Philadelphia as hurting none and benefiting all, but it benefited only the wealthy, and it did so upon the backs of the poor.”

The whiskeymen see Hamilton and his cronies get rich off the war debt, getting the American people to enrich those in government through taxes in paying off that debt.

“We fight against England for oppressing us, but when we do it to ourselves, when our own government places men like Hamilton and Duer in a position to destroy the soul of the nation, do we take our ease and do nothing?”

They are preaching a revolution, the right revolution. The fact that Washington raised a vast army to crush this rebellion only a few years after winning his own rebellion speaks volumes about the young Republic: power was more important than liberty, even in 1794.

“This country began in a flash of brilliance, but look what has happened. The suffering of human chattel ignored by our government, a small cadre of rich men dictating our national policies. In the West, men die … as a consequence of this greed. This is not why my husband fought in the Revolution. I suspect it's not what you fought for either,” Maycott explains her cause to Captain Saunders.

Everything is connected in this book. Saunders and Maycott will meet, and although Saunders is no Hamiltonian, the two strong characters find each other opposed. Maycott, driven by her need for revenge after the tax enforcement efforts lead to the death of her husband, sees Saunders as dangerous, and he must be neutralized. “Do you want to stand with the virtues of the Revolution, or do you submit to Hamiltonian greed?” they ask him. At this point he cares little for either point, but when Cynthia needs his help he joins her side, even if that means he becomes an enemy of the whiskey rebels.

The rebels see Hamilton and Duer as the root of evil, destroying the noble experiment of America. They are not alone. In Philadelphia, Jeffersonian supporters who hate Hamilton see the “American project to have already been tainted by venality and corruption.” Certainly in the characters of Willian Duer and his associates, that view could only be confirmed. Speculators are linked with bankers, and bankers are linked with people in power. Those in power see speculators and bankers as necessary evils, required to fund the growth of a central government based upon the ideas of British rule.

Contrast this situation to the present one, where the banking crisis grew out of the ideas of certain people in power pushing agendas completely at odds with market forces, inflating the money supply to win political points. The crash at the end of the novel, as with other crashes and especially that of 2007-2009, show that government will justify any action to prevent the ill effects caused by its own meddling.

These editorial comments reflect only this reviewer's views. The novel stands alone without comparing events from 200 years ago to those of today, but I could not help but notice the similarities. As one character notes, "[m]any investors lost everything they had, but clever men made themselves richer.” Jeffersonians saw the massive speculation as a “destructive force,” and that it would turn the nation into its former enemy and colonial ruler. Those in power collude with unscrupulous people, then as now. No doubt Hamilton, who admired the British system of government, would agree, though not as a form of criticism. When the Maycotts reach their small plot and realize how they were cheated and by whom, Joan concludes “that the law, the principles of the republic for which [they] had fought, had already been abandoned.” When Sauders later faces down Maycott as she prepares her final thrust at the heart of Hamilton's new system, he asks her, "[w]hat if something worse comes from the chaos,” Maycott replies as any libertarian radical might, that “the world will have to wait for just governance … Better anarchy than an unjust nation that masquerades as a beacon of righteousness.”

The Whiskey Rebels is a superb novel, capturing the essence of its time period, the nasty and vile conjunction of commerce and government, and rife with vivid characters whose hopes and fears resonate strongly among friends of liberty.