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Proclamation of Thanksgiving at the end of the Whiskey Rebellion

Lot 182
28.01.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1360898
Lot 182 | Proclamation of Thanksgiving at the end of the Whiskey Rebellion
Estimate value
$ 6 000 – 8 000
WASHINGTON, George (1732-1799). State of Connecticut January 23, 1795. By His Excellency Samuel Huntington Esquire ... The following proclamation is hereby ordered to be publicly read in the several religious societies and congregations of all denominations throughout this state. By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation … of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer. [Hartford: Elisha Babcock, 1795].

Proclaiming a day of Thanksgiving at the conclusion of the Whiskey Rebellion. Following the successful disruption of the western Pennsylvania rebellion against the federal excise tax on distilled sprits, Washington proclaims a day of thanksgiving for 19 February 1795, opening with an allusion to the chaos of the French Revolution: "When we review the calamities which afflict so many other nations, the present condition of the United States affords much matter of consolation and satisfaction. Our exemption hitherto from foreign war—an increasing prospect of the continuance of that exemption—the great degree of internal tranquility we have enjoyed —the recent confirmation of that tranquility, by the suppression of an insurrection which so wantonly threatened it—the happy course of our public affairs in general—the exampled prosperity of all classes of our citizens, are circumstances which peculiarly mark our situation with indications of the Divine Beneficence towards us." The rebellion in the western reaches of Pennsylvania came to a head when a U.S. Marshal travelled there to serve writs against non-tax paying distillers. When a mob besieged the home of the local tax inspector in the summer of 1794, Washignton responded by dispatching peace commissioners and led a militia of 13,000 against the rebels who dispersed before they arrived. Approximately 150 were tried for treason, yet only two were ever convicted, and those two were eventually pardoned. Although the rebellion was the first instance of armed resistance against federal authority since the enactment of the Constitution, to a certain extent, it amounted to a tempest in a teapot which mainly served to strengthen Hamilton and the Federalists over the frontier Democratic Republican Societies. Jefferson shrewdly summed it up when he wrote "an insurrection was announced and proclaimed and armed against, but could never be found." This was Washington's second Thanksgiving proclamation—the first issued in 1789 to celebrate the successful establishment of the federal government under the Constitution of 1787.

Rare. The present broadside was printed by order of Connecticut Governor Samuel Huntington, whose 25 January 1795 order for a public reading of Washington's proclamation is printed above. Evans 29732, ESTC W34374 locating three copies, in the American Antiquarian Society, Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, and New York Historical. Only one other copy has appeared at auction since 1961 according to RBH.

Broadside, 314 x 188mm (erasure below Washington's signature, a few toned areas, especially along horizontal folds). Docketed on verso in an unknown hand, "By President Washington Thanksgiving Febraury 19th 1795."
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14.01.2025 – 28.01.2025
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