Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection

"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"--