<P> Other accounts describe the indictment of 24 men for high treason . Most of the accused had eluded capture, so only ten men stood trial for treason in federal court . Of these, only Philip Wigle and John Mitchell were convicted . Wigle had beaten up a tax collector and burned his house; Mitchell was a simpleton who had been convinced by David Bradford to rob the U.S. mail . Both men were sentenced to death by hanging, but they were pardoned by President Washington . Pennsylvania state courts were more successful in prosecuting lawbreakers, securing numerous convictions for assault and rioting . While violent opposition to the whiskey tax ended, political opposition to the tax continued . Opponents of internal taxes rallied around the candidacy of Thomas Jefferson and helped him defeat President John Adams in the election of 1800 . By 1802, Congress repealed the distilled spirits excise tax and all other internal Federal taxes . Until the War of 1812, the Federal government would rely solely on import tariffs for revenue, which quickly grew with the Nation's expanding foreign trade . </P> <P> The Washington administration's suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion met with widespread popular approval . The episode demonstrated that the new national government had the willingness and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws . It was, therefore, viewed by the Washington administration as a success, a view that has generally been endorsed by historians . The Washington administration and its supporters usually did not mention, however, that the whiskey excise remained difficult to collect, and that many westerners continued to refuse to pay the tax . The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already underway . The whiskey tax was repealed after Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party came to power in 1801, which opposed the Federalist Party of Hamilton and Washington . </P> <P> The Rebellion raised the question of what kinds of protests were permissible under the new Constitution . Legal historian Christian G. Fritz argued that there was not yet a consensus about sovereignty in the United States, even after ratification of the Constitution . Federalists believed that the government was sovereign because it had been established by the people; radical protest actions were permissible during the American Revolution but were no longer legitimate, in their thinking . But the Whiskey Rebels and their defenders believed that the Revolution had established the people as a "collective sovereign", and the people had the collective right to change or challenge the government through extra-constitutional means . </P> <P> Historian Steven Boyd argued that the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion prompted anti-Federalist westerners to finally accept the Constitution and to seek change by voting for Republicans rather than resisting the government . Federalists, for their part, came to accept the public's role in governance and no longer challenged the freedom of assembly and the right to petition . </P>

What did the whiskey rebellion show about the constitution
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