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WH: While slaveowners were indeed "big businessmen," there were beginning to be "big" businesses in the northern US too. Insurance companies could be large and well capitalized, for instance. One good example comes from the history of the Whiskey Rebellion. Alexander Hamilton's 1791 tax on whiskey very intentionally discriminated against individual distillers and in favor of large distillers in the northeast who engaged in distilling on a large basis, were incorporated, and made a profit on the sale of alcoholic beverages. While the first giant businesses in the US were textile in nature, in New England, and emerged only in the second and later decades of the nineteenth century, there were previously other large and growing concerns such as these whiskey sellers. The business form of incorporation -- allowing for limited liability -- was being developed in the 1790s, and did not emerge full-blown in the 1810s and 1820s.