Parkinson's Ferry was the political center of gravity of the Whiskey Rebellion. The assembly of armed delegates was the closest the rebellion came to a formal government. Moderate delegates ultimately voted for conditional submission, but Washington refused to halt the federal army. The advance of 13,000 militia ended the rebellion without a major battle.
The early republic period saw the United States move from the weak Articles of Confederation to the federal Constitution ratified in 1788, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791. George Washington served two terms as president (1789–1797), establishing precedents for executive authority, and the federal capital moved permanently to Washington D.C. in 1800. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation's territory for roughly $15 million, opening vast trans-Mississippi lands to American expansion. The War of 1812 against Britain ended inconclusively but produced a surge of American national identity and eliminated most British support for Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi. The Northwest Indian Wars (1785–1795) and the Creek War (1813–1814) broke Indigenous confederacies that had resisted US expansion. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily balanced slave and free states as the nation expanded westward, but embedded the contradiction of slavery in every subsequent territorial debate.
None; confrontation resolved through negotiation
~226 armed delegates representing western Pennsylvania counties; federal commissioners sent to negotiate
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