Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection - by Linda Myrsiades

About the Book

"Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection examines the legal context in which the Whiskey Rebellion was situated, with an eye towards how it was constructed both in the jurisprudence of the courts and in the vernacular ideology of popular dissent. The rationale for such a study lies in the connection between the 1790s and today and the prospect that the innovative experiment represented by U. S. democracy might die, which made the insurrection a crucible for testing the new nation's Constitution and laws and the government they established.?Extending its understanding of legal culture beyond established courts, the study expands materials treating the rebel contribution to legal culture by examining assembly speeches, petitions, and popular courts as well as street politics and propaganda to allow us to balance rebel, government, and judicial perspectives"--

Book Synopsis

Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection treats the legal culture that informed the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 and its trials. Linda Myrsiades examines conflicts between state and federal courts and the judicial philosophy of Federalist judges, as well as grand jury charges, law reports, judges' bench notes, and defense notes for the trials, to develop a portrait of the hegemony of official interpretations of the law. At the same time, the book illuminates popular attitudes about the courts and the law and explores the nature of extralegal courts operated by the people.

Myrsiades captures the agitation-propaganda efforts mounted by rebel communities and groups together with petitions and speeches in the rebel assemblies in demonstrating that popular culture offered a clear politico-legal justification within the rebel movement on the unofficial side of legal culture. Myrsiades thus presents a holistic picture of the legal culture of the rebellion. Her examination denies the common perception that the rebel movement was incoherent and chaotic and presents an alternative view that its perceptions are a necessary correlative to understanding how treason law functioned and what its critical elements were in the late-eighteenth century, serving as a lesson for democracy in the present era.

Review Quotes

Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection offers the most nuanced and accurate understanding of the "Western Insurrection" available. Court cases--examined more closely here than in any previous study--illustrate the nascent emergence of a new national court system.--Robert Martin "author of Government by Dissent: Protest, Resistance, and Radical Democratic Thought in the Early American Republic"

About the Author

LINDA MYRSIADES is professor emerita of English and Comparative Literature at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of several books, including Law and Medicine in Revolutionary America and Medical Culture in Revolutionary America. Myrsiades lives and writes in the Philadelphia suburbs.