Hello all it's Don here. I hope you're having a great week and that you're taking time off on this day to commemorate Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday which memorializes and celebrates the eventual end of American enslavement in the South, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation became effective in 1863.

On June 19, 1865, the Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas and pronounced the quarter of a

million enslaved souls in the state to be forever free. This is now commemorated

as our nation's second Independence Day, though as history tells us,

it did not end the painful struggle for freedom and equal rights for Black Americans, work that still

continues in other forms to this day.

As we assumed many of you would be busy with celebrations, we figured we take the day off ourselves

and dive into the archive and send you an episode from our past, in this case way back to our 17th episode about the

Whiskey Rebellion, a conversation that has come up in several recent episodes

especially one on the presidential pardons in the last few weeks.

In this episode today, I speak with author and historian William Hoagland, who also came to the

pod for his recent book about Alexander Hamilton.

He's a real friend of the podcast. So please enjoy William Hoagland and the

Whiskey Rebellion. Let me know what you think and happy Juneteenth.

It is July 15th, 1794. Federal Marshal David Lennox has been delivering subpoenas to

whiskey distillers in Pennsylvania who have refused to pay the whiskey tax,

the first domestic product tax imposed by the United States government.

Lennox arrives at a farm about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh,

accompanied by local tax inspector General John Neville.

Suddenly warning shots are fired in their direction, forcing both to flee.

Neville returns to his mansion, Bower Hill.

Lennox returns to Pittsburgh.

...