not to address with deference those who possessed wealth and power. They considered the whiskey tax inspector John Neville, a reasonably-wealthy man, as an agent of their eastern enemies. James McFarlane, chairman of the Society of United Freemen, was killed while he was trying to force Neville's resignation, an event that triggered the Whiskey Rebellion. Decline The Federalist Party opposed such groups and claimed that they had been started by Citizen Genêt as a tool of the revolutionary government in Paris. Members responded by claiming they were inspired by the Sons of Liberty, the Whig Clubs, and other republican groups of the 1770s. President Washington vehemently denounced the societies in late 1794. After his successful quelling of the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington complained that the Democratic-Republican societies in western Pennsylvania had helped to instigate the revolt and thus were enemies of the new government and nation. By 1796, most of the groups had disbanded. As educational organizations, the societies had some influence. They believed that a republican nation required citizens to act together to deal with social problems at the grassroots. It considered the mobilized citizenry to be essential to defeat aristocracy, which they identified with Alexander Hamilton. In opposing rule by the few, they helped define what rule by the many might be. References Notes Bibliography Dotts, Brian W. Citizen Dissent in the New Republic: Radical Republicanism and Democratic Educational Thought during the Revolutionary era (PhD dissertation, Indiana University 2005), portions online Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1995) Foner, Philip S. ed.; The Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts (1976). Luetscher, George D. Early Political Machinery in the United States (1903) online ch 2 Link, Eugene Perry. Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (1942) Owen, Kenneth. Political community in revolutionary Pennsylvania, 1774-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2018). Schoenbachler, Matthew. "Republicanism in the Age of Democratic Revolution: The Democratic-Republican Societies of the 1790s". Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 18, No. 2. (1998) in JSTOR Sioli, Marco M. "The Democratic Republican Societies at the End of the Eighteenth Century: the Western Pennsylvania Experience." Pennsylvania History 1993 60(3): 288-304. ISSN 0031-4528 Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln'' (2005). 1790s in the United States Democratic-Republican Party politicians Political history of the United States Presidency of George Washington Republicanism in the United States