Albert Gallatin Part 3

CHAPTER IV

THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION

Mr. Gallatin was now out of public life. For eighteen months since he came up to the legislature with his friends of the Pittsburgh convention, he had not returned to Fayette. His private concerns were suffering in his absence. Neither his barn, his meadow, nor his house was finished at the close of 1793. In May, 1794, he took his wife to his country home. Their hopes of a summer of recreation and domestic comfort in the wild beauties of the Monongahela were not to be realized. Before the end of June the peaceful country was in a state of mad agitation.

The seeds of political discontent, sown at Pittsburgh in 1792, had ripened to an abundant harvest. An act pa.s.sed by Congress June 5, 1794, giving to the state courts concurrent jurisdiction in excise cases, removed the grievance of which Gallatin complained, the dragging of accused persons to Philadelphia for trial, but was not construed to be retroactive in its operation. The marshal, accordingly, found it to be his duty to serve the writs of May 31 against those who had fallen under their penalties. These writs were returnable in Philadelphia. They were served without trouble in Fayette County. Not so in Allegheny. Here on July 15, 1794, the marshal had completed his service, when, while still in the execution of his office, and in company with the inspector, he was followed and fired upon. The next day a body of men went to the house of the marshal and demanded that he should deliver up his commission. They were fired upon and dispersed, six were wounded, and the leader killed. A general rising followed. The marshal's house, though defended by Major Kirkpatrick, with a squad from the Pittsburgh garrison, was set on fire, with the adjacent buildings, and burned. On July 18 the insurgents sent a deputation of two or three to Pittsburgh, to require of the marshal a surrender of the processes in his possession, and of the inspector the resignation of his office. These demands were, of course, rejected; but the officers, alarmed for their personal safety, left the town, and, descending the Ohio by boat to Marietta, proceeded by a circuitous route to Philadelphia, and made their report to the United States authorities.

This was the outbreak of the Western or Whiskey Insurrection. The excitement spread rapidly through the western counties. Fayette County was not exempt from it. The collector's house was broken into, and his commission taken from him by armed men; the sheriff refused to serve the writs against the rioters of the spring. Since these disturbances there had been no trouble in this county. But the malcontents elsewhere rose in arms, riots ensued, and the safety of the whole community was compromised. The news reaching Fayette, the distillers held a meeting at Uniontown, the county seat, on July 20. Both Gallatin and Smilie were present, and by their advice it was agreed to submit to the laws. The neighboring counties were less fortunate. On July 21 the Was.h.i.+ngton County committee was summoned to meet at Mingo Creek Meeting-house. On the 23d there was a large a.s.semblage of people, including a number of those who had been concerned in burning the house of the Pittsburgh inspector. James Marshall, the same who opposed the ratification of the federal Const.i.tution, David Bradford, the "empty drum," and Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, attended this meeting. Bradford, the most unscrupulous of the leaders, sought to s.h.i.+rk his responsibility, but was intimidated by threats, and thereafter did not dare to turn back.

Brackenridge was present to counsel the insurgents to moderation. In spite of his efforts the meeting ended in an invitation, which the officers had not the boldness to sign, to the towns.h.i.+ps of the four western counties of Pennsylvania and the adjoining counties of Virginia to send representatives to a general meeting on August 14, at Parkinson's Ferry on the Monongahela, in Was.h.i.+ngton County. Bradford, determined to aggravate the disturbance, stopped the mail at Greensburg, on the road between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and robbed it of the Was.h.i.+ngton and Pittsburgh letters, some of which he published, to the alarm of their authors.

On July 28 a circular signed by Bradford, Marshall, and others was sent out from Cannonsburg to the militia of the county, whom it summoned for personal service, and likewise called for volunteers to rendezvous the following Wednesday, July 30, at their respective places of meeting, thence to march to Braddock's Field, on the Monongahela, the usual rendezvous of the militia, about eight miles south of Pittsburgh, by two o'clock of Friday, August 1. It closed in these words, "Here is an expedition proposed in which you will have an opportunity for displaying your military talents and of rendering service to your country." Nothing less was contemplated by the more extreme of these men than an attack upon Fort Pitt and the sack of Pittsburgh. Thoroughly aroused at last, the moderate men of Was.h.i.+ngton determined to breast the storm. A meeting was held; James Ross of the United States Senate made an earnest appeal, and was supported by Scott of the House of Representatives and Stokely of the Senate of Pennsylvania. Marshall and Bradford yielded, and consented to countermand the order of rendezvous. But the excited population poured into the town from all quarters, and Bradford, who found that he had gone too far to retreat, again took the lead of the movement, already beyond restraint.

There are accounts of this formidable insurrection by H. H. Brackenridge and William Findley, eye-witnesses. These supply abundant details.

Findley says that he knew that the movement would not stop at the limit apparently set for it. "The opposing one law would lead to oppose another; they would finally oppose all, and demand a new modeling of the Const.i.tution, and there would be a revolution." There was great alarm in Pittsburgh. A meeting was held there Thursday evening, July 31, at which a message from the Was.h.i.+ngton County insurgents was read, violent resolutions adopted, and the 9th of August appointed as the day for a town meeting for election of delegates to a general convention of the counties at Parkinson's Ferry; Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, a man of education, influence, and infinite jest and humor, was present at this meeting. Of Scotch-Irish birth himself, his sympathies of race were with his countrymen, but in political sentiments he was not in harmony with their leaders. They were nearly all Republicans, while he had sided with the Federalists in the convention which adopted the new Const.i.tution of the United States. He was a man of peace, and of too much sagacity not to foresee the inevitable ruin upon which they were rus.h.i.+ng. At Mingo Creek he had thwarted the plans of immediate revolution. The evident policy of moderate men was to prevent any violence before the convention at Parkinson's Ferry should meet, and to bend all their energies to control the deliberations of that body. The people of Pittsburgh were intensely excited by the armed gathering almost at their doors.

Brackenridge felt that the only safe issue from the situation was to take part in and shape the action of that gathering. Under his lead a committee from the Pittsburgh meeting, followed by a large body of the citizens, went out to the rendezvous. Here they found a motley a.s.semblage, arrayed in the picturesque campaign costume which the mountaineers wore when they equipped themselves to meet the Indians,--yellow hunting-s.h.i.+rts, handkerchiefs tied about their heads, and rifles on the shoulder; the militia were on foot, and the light horse of the counties were in military dress. Conspicuous about the field, "haughty and pompous," as Gallatin described him in the legislature, was David Bradford, who had a.s.sumed the office of major-general. Brackenridge draws a lifelike picture of him as, mounted on a superb horse in splendid trappings, arrayed in full uniform, with plume floating in the air and sword drawn, he rode over the ground, gave orders to the military, and harangued the mult.i.tude. On the historic ground where Was.h.i.+ngton plucked his first military laurels were gathered about seven thousand men, of whom two thousand militia were armed and accoutred as for a campaign,--a formidable and remarkable a.s.semblage, when it is considered that the entire male population of sixteen years of age and upwards of the four counties did not exceed sixteen thousand, and was scattered over a wide and unsettled country. This is Brackenridge's estimate of the numbers. Later, Gallatin, on comparison of the best attainable information, estimated the whole body at from fifteen hundred to two thousand men. Whatever violence Bradford may have intended, none was accomplished. That he read aloud the Pittsburgh letters, taken from the mail, shows his purpose to inflame the people to vindictive violence. He was accused by contemporary authorities of imitation of the methods of the French Jacobins, which were fresh examples of revolutionary vigor. But the ma.s.s was not persuaded. After desultory conversation and discussion, the angry turn of which was at times threatening to the moderate leaders, the meeting broke up on August 2; about one third dispersed for their homes, and the remainder, marching to Pittsburgh, paraded through the streets, and finally crossing the river in their turn scattered. They did no damage to the town beyond the burning of a farm belonging to Major Kirkpatrick of the garrison. The taverns were all closed, but the citizens brought whiskey to their doors. Judge Brackenridge reports that his sacrifice to peace on this occasion cost him four barrels of his best old rye.

This moderation was no augury of permanent quiet. Brackenridge, who was a keen observer of men, says of the temper of the western population at this period: "I had seen the spirit which prevailed at the Stamp Act, and at the commencement of the revolution from the government of Great Britain, but it was by no means so general and so vigorous amongst the common people as the spirit which now existed in the country." Nor did the armed bands all return peaceably to their homes. The house of the collector for Fayette and Was.h.i.+ngton counties was burned, and warnings were given to those who were disposed to submit to the law. The disaffected were called "Tom the tinker" men, from the signature affixed to the threatening notices. From a pa.s.sage in one of Gallatin's letters it appears that there was a person of that name, a New England man, who had been concerned in Shays's insurrection. Liberty poles, with the device, "An equal tax and no excise law," were raised, and the trees placarded with the old revolutionary motto, "United we stand, divided we fall," with a divided snake as an emblem. Mr. Gallatin's neighborhood was not represented at Braddock's Field, and not more than a dozen were present from the entire county. But now the flame spread there also, and liberty poles were raised. Mr. Gallatin himself, inquiring as to their significance and expressing to the men engaged the hope that they would not behave like a mob, was asked, in return, if he was not aware of the Westmoreland resolution that any one calling the people a mob should be tarred and feathered,--an amusing example of that mob logic which proves the affirmative of the proposition it denies.

Mr. Gallatin did not attend the meeting at Braddock's Field. Somewhat isolated at his residence at the southerly border of the county, engaged in the care of his long neglected farm, and in the full enjoyment of release from the bustle and excitement of public life, he had paid little attention to pa.s.sing events. He was preparing definitively to abandon political pursuits and to follow some kind of mercantile business, or take up some land speculation and study law in his intervals of leisure. It was not a year since he had given hostages to fortune. He was now in the full tide of domestic happiness, which was always to him the dearest and most coveted. He might well have hesitated before again engaging upon the dangerous and uncertain task of controlling an excited and aggrieved population. But he did not hesitate.

The people among whom he had made his home, and whose confidence had never failed him, were his people. By them he would stand in their extremity, and if hurt or ruin befell them, it should not be for want of the interposition of his counsel. He knew his powers, and he determined to bring them into full play. He knew the danger also, but it only nerved him to confront and master it. He knew his duty, and did not swerve one hair from the line it prompted. In no part of his long, varied, and useful political life does he appear to better advantage than in this exciting episode of the Whiskey Insurrection. His self-possession, his cool judgment, swayed neither by timidity nor rashness, never for a moment failed him. Here he displayed that remarkable combination of persuasion and control,--the indispensable equipment of a political chief,--which, in later days, gave him the leaders.h.i.+p of the Republican party. With intuitive perception of the political situation he saw that the only path to safety, beset with difficulty and danger though it were, was through the convention at Parkinson's Ferry. He did not believe that any revolutionary proceedings had yet been taken, or that the convention was an illegal body, but he was determined to separate the wheat from the chaff, and disengage the moderate and the law-abiding from the disorderly. By the light of his own experience he had learned wisdom. He also had drawn a lesson from the French Revolution, and knew the uncontrollable nature of large popular a.s.semblages. The news from Philadelphia, the seat of government, was of a kind to increase his alarm. Was.h.i.+ngton was not the man to overlook such an insult to authority as the resistance to the marshal and inspector; nor was it probable that Hamilton would let pa.s.s such an occasion for showing the strength and vigor of the government.

Before the meeting at Braddock's Field, the secretary's plans for a suppression of the insurrection were matured. On August 2 he laid before the President an estimate of the probable armed force of the insurgents, and of that with which he proposed to reduce them to submission. When the question of the use of force came before the cabinet, Edmund Randolph, who was secretary of state, opposed it in a written opinion, one phrase of which deserves repet.i.tion:--

"It is a fact well known that the parties in the United States are highly inflamed against each other, and that there is but one character which keeps both in awe. As soon as the sword shall be drawn, who shall be able to retain them."

Mifflin, the governor of Pennsylvania, deprecated immediate resort to force; the venerable Chief Justice McKean suggested the sending of commissioners on the part of the federal and state governments.

Was.h.i.+ngton, with perfect judgment, combined these plans, and happily allied conciliation with force. A proclamation was issued on August 7 summoning all persons involved in the disturbance to lay down their arms and repair to their homes by September 1. Requisitions were made upon the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey for fifteen thousand men in all, and a joint commission of five was raised,--three of whom on the part of the United States were appointed by the President, and two on the part of the State of Pennsylvania. This news was soon known at Pittsburgh, and rapidly spread through the adjacent country; and it was clear that in the proceedings to be taken at Parkinson's Ferry the question of resistance or submission must be definitively settled. On August 14, 1794, the convention a.s.sembled; two hundred and twenty-six delegates in all, of whom ninety-three were from Was.h.i.+ngton, forty-nine from Westmoreland, forty-three from Allegheny, thirty-three from Fayette, two from Bedford, five from Ohio County in Virginia, with spectators to about the same number.

Parkinson's Ferry, later called Williamsport, and now Monongahela City, is on the left bank of the Monongahela, about half way between Pittsburgh and Red Stone Old Fort or Brownsville. Brackenridge pictures the scene with his usual local color: "Our hall was a grove, and we might well be called 'the Mountain' (an allusion to the radical left of the French convention), for we were on a very lofty ground overlooking the river. We had a gallery of lying timber and stumps, and there were more people collected there than there was of the committee." In full view of the meeting stood a liberty pole, raised in the morning by the men who signed the Braddock's Field circular order, and it bore the significant motto, "Liberty and no excise and no asylum for cowards."

Among the delegates, or the committee, to use their own term, were Bradford, Marshall, Brackenridge, Findley, and Gallatin. Before the meeting was organized, Marshall came to Gallatin and showed him the resolutions which he intended to move, intimating at the same time that he wished Mr. Gallatin to act as secretary. Mr. Gallatin told him that he highly disapproved the resolutions, and had come to oppose both him and Bradford, and therefore did not wish to serve. Marshall seemed to waver; but soon the people met, and Edward Cook of Fayette, who had presided at Braddock's Field, was chosen chairman, with Gallatin for secretary. Bradford opened the proceedings with a summary sketch of the action previously taken, declared the purpose of the committee to be to determine on a course of action, and his own views to be the appointment of committees to raise money, purchase arms, enlist volunteers, or draft the militia: in a word, though he did not use it, to levy war.

At this point in the proceedings the arrival of the commissioners from the President was announced, but the progress of the meeting was not interrupted. The commissioners were at a house near the meeting, but there were serious objections against holding a conference at this place.

Marshall then moved his resolutions. The first, declaratory of the grievance of carrying citizens great distances for trial, was unanimously agreed to. The second called for a committee of public safety "to call forth the resources of the western country to repel any hostile attempts that may be made against the rights of the citizens, or of the body of the people." Had this resolution been adopted, the people were definitively committed to overt rebellion. This brought Mr.

Gallatin at once to his feet. He denied that any hostile attempts against the rights of the people were threatened, and drew an adroit distinction between the regular army, which had not been called out, and the militia, who were a part of the people themselves; and to gain time he moved a reference of the resolutions to a committee who should be instructed to wait the action of the government. In the course of his speech Gallatin denied the a.s.sertion that resistance to the excise law was legal, or that coercion by the government was necessarily hostile.

He was neither supported by his own friends nor opposed by those of Bradford. He stood alone.

But Marshall withdrew his resolution, and a committee of sixty was appointed, with power to summon the people. The only other objectionable resolution was that which pledged the people to the support of the laws, except the excise law and the taking of citizens out of their counties for trial,--an exception which Gallatin succeeded in having stricken out. He then urged the adoption of the resolution, without the exception, as necessary "to the establishment of the laws and the conservation of the peace," and here he was supported by Brackenridge.

The entire resolutions were finally referred to a committee of four,--Gallatin, Bradford, Husbands, and Brackenridge. The meeting then adjourned. The next morning a standing committee of sixty was chosen, one from each towns.h.i.+p. From these a committee of twelve was selected to confer with the government commissioners. Upon this committee were Cook, the chairman, Bradford, Marshall, Gallatin, Brackenridge, and Edgar. The meeting then adjourned.

Upon this representative body there seems to have been no outside pressure. The proclamation of the President, which arrived while it was in session, showed the determination, while the appointment of the commission showed the moderation, of the government. Gallatin availed of each circ.u.mstance with consummate adroitness, pointing out to the desperate the folly of resistance, and to the moderate an issue for honorable retreat.

Meanwhile, the commissioners reached Pittsburgh, where on August 20 the committee of conference was received by them, and an informal understanding arrived at, which was put in writing. The laws were to be enforced with as little inconvenience to the people as possible. All criminal suits for indictable offenses were to be dropped, but civil suits were to take their course. Notice was given that a definitive submission must be made by September 1 following. On the 22d the conference committee answered that they must consult with the committee of sixty. Thursday the 28th was appointed for a meeting at Red Stone Old Fort, the very spot where the original resolutions of opposition were pa.s.sed in 1791. In the report drawn up every member of the twelve, except Bradford, favored submission.

The hour was critical, the deliberations were in the open air, and under the eyes of a threatening party of seventy riflemen accidentally present from Was.h.i.+ngton County across the stream. Bradford, who instinctively felt that he had placed himself beyond the pale of pardon, and to whom there was no alternative to revolution but flight, pressed an instant decision and rejection of the written terms of the commissioners. In the presence of personal danger, the conferrees only dared to move that part of their report which advised acceptance of the proffered terms. The question of submission they left untouched. An adjournment was obtained.

The next day, to quote the words of Brackenridge, "the committee having convened, Gallatin addressed the chair in a speech of some hours. It was a piece of perfect eloquence, and was heard with attention and without disturbance." Never was there a more striking instance of intellectual control over a popular a.s.semblage. He saved the western counties of Pennsylvania from anarchy and civil war. He was followed by Brackenridge, who, warned by the example of his companion, or encouraged by the quiet of the a.s.semblage, supported him with vigor. Bradford, on the other hand, faced the issue with directness and savage vehemence. He repelled the idea of submission, and insisted upon an independent government and a declaration of war. Edgar of Was.h.i.+ngton rejoined in support of the report. Gallatin now demanded a vote, but the twelve conferrees alone supported him. He then proposed an informal vote, but without result. Finally a secret ballot was proposed by a member. A hat was pa.s.sed, and when the slips of paper were taken out, there were thirty-four yeas and twenty-three nays. The report was declared to be adopted, and amid the scowls of the armed witnesses the meeting adjourned; not, however, before a new committee of conference had been appointed. On this new committee not one of the old leaders was named.

They evidently knew the folly of further delay, or of attempting to secure better terms. As his final act Colonel Cook, the chairman of the standing committee of sixty, indorsed the resolution adopted. It declared it to be "to the interest of the people of the country to accede to the proposals made by the commissioners on the part of the United States." This was duly forwarded, with request for a further conference. The commissioners consented, but declined to postpone the time of taking the sense of the people beyond September 11.

William Findley said of the famous and critical debate at Red Stone: "I had never heard speeches that I more ardently desired to see in print than those delivered on this occasion. They would not only be valuable on account of the oratory and information displayed in all the three, and especially in Gallatin's, who opened the way, but they would also have been the best history of the spirit and the mistakes which then actuated men's minds." Findley, in his allotment of the honors of the day, considers that "the verbal alterations made by Gallatin saved the question." Brackenridge thought that his own seeming to coincide with Bradford prevented the declaration of war; and he has been credited with having saved the western counties from the horrors of civil war, Pittsburgh from destruction, and the Federal Union from imminent danger.

Historians have agreed in according to Gallatin the honor of this field day. It was left to John C. Hamilton, half a century later, to charge a want of courage upon Gallatin,--a baseless charge.[3] Not Malesherbes, the n.o.ble advocate defending the accused monarch before the angry French convention, with the certainty of the guillotine as the reward of his generosity, is more worthy of admiration than Gallatin boldly pleading the cause of order within rifle range of an excited band of lawless frontiersmen. If, as he confessed later, in his part in the Pittsburgh resolutions he was guilty of "a political sin," he n.o.bly atoned for it under circ.u.mstances that would have tried the courage of men bred to danger and to arms. Sin it was, and its consequences were not yet summed up. For although the back of the insurrection was broken at Red Stone Old Fort, there was much yet to be done before submission could be completed.

Bradford attempted to sign, but found that his course at Red Stone Old Fort had placed him outside the amnesty. Well might the moderate men say in their familiar manner of Scripture allusion, "Dagon is fallen." He fled down the Ohio and Mississippi to Louisiana, then foreign soil. The commissioners waited at Pittsburgh for the signatures of adhesion on September 10, which was the last day allowed by the terms of amnesty.

They required that meetings should be held on this day in the several towns.h.i.+ps; the presiding officers to report the result to commissioner Ross at Uniontown the 16th of the same month, on which day he would set out for Philadelphia. The time was inadequate, but there was no help.

Gallatin hastened the submission of Fayette, and a meeting of committees from the several towns.h.i.+ps met at the county seat, Uniontown, on September 10, 1794, when a declaration drawn by Mr. Gallatin was unanimously adopted. A pa.s.sage in this admirable paper shows the comparative order which prevailed in Fayette County during this period of trouble. It is an appeal to the people of the neighboring counties, who, under the influence of their pa.s.sions and resentment, might blame those of Fayette for their moderation.

"The only reflection we mean to suggest to them is the disinterestedness of our conduct upon this occasion. The indictable offences to be buried in oblivion were committed amongst them, and almost every civil suit that has been inst.i.tuted under the revenue law, in the federal court, was commenced against citizens of this county. By the terms proposed, the criminal prosecutions are to be dropped, but no condition could be obtained for the civil suits. We have been instrumental in obtaining an amnesty, from which those alone who had a share in the riots derive a benefit, and the other inhabitants of the western country have gained nothing for themselves."

This declaration was forwarded on September 17 to Governor Mifflin, with reasons for the delay, and advice that signatures were fast being obtained, not only in the neighboring counties, but even in Fayette, where this formality had not been thought necessary. It closes with a forcible appeal to delay the sending of troops until every conciliatory measure should have proved abortive.

But the commissioners, unfortunately, were not favorably impressed with the reception they met with or the scenes they witnessed on their western mission. They had heard of Bradford's threat to establish an independent government west of the mountains, and they had seen a liberty pole raised upon which the people with the greatest difficulty had been dissuaded from hoisting a flag with six stripes--emblematic of the six counties represented in the committee. The flag was made, but set aside for the fifteen stripes with reluctance. This is Findley's recollection, but Brackenridge says that it was a flag of seven stars for the four western counties, Bedford, and the two counties of Virginia. This, he adds, was the first and only manifestation among any cla.s.s of a desire to separate from the Union. But here his memory failed him.

Hamilton had long been impatient. Again, as in old days, he presented his arguments directly to the people. Under the heading, "Tully to the people of the United States," he printed a letter on August 26, of which the following is a pa.s.sage:--

"Your representatives in Congress, pursuant to the commission derived from you, and with a full knowledge of the public exigencies, have laid an excise. At three succeeding sessions they have revised that act ... and _you_ have actually paid more than a million of dollars on account of it. But the four western counties of Pennsylvania undertake to rejudge and reverse your decrees.

_You_ have said, 'The Congress _shall have power_ to lay _excises_.' They say, 'The Congress shall _not have_ this power;'

or, what is equivalent, they shall not exercise it, for a _power_ that may not be exercised is a nullity. Your representatives have said, and four times repeated it, 'An excise on distilled spirits _shall_ be collected;' they say, 'It _shall not_ be collected. We will punish, expel, and banish the officers who shall attempt the collection.'"

The peace commissioners returned to Philadelphia and made their report on September 24. The next day, September 25, Was.h.i.+ngton issued a proclamation calling out the troops. In it he again warned the insurgents. The militia, already armed, accoutred, and equipped, and awaiting marching orders, moved at once. Governor Mifflin at first hesitated about his power to call out the militia, but when the President's requisition was made, he summoned the legislature in special session, and obtained from it a hearty support, with authority to accept volunteers and offer a bounty. Thus fortified, he made a tour through the lower counties of the State, and by his extraordinary popular eloquence soon filled up the ranks. The old soldier led his troops in person. Those of New Jersey were commanded by their governor, Richard Howell of Revolutionary fame. These formed the right wing and marched to rendezvous at Bedford to cross the mountains by the northern and Pennsylvania route. The left wing, composed of the Virginia troops, under the veteran Morgan, and those of Maryland, under Samuel Smith, a brigadier-general in the army of the Revolution, a.s.sembled at c.u.mberland to cross the mountains by Braddock's Road. The chief command was confided to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia. Was.h.i.+ngton accompanied the army as far as Bedford. Hamilton continued with it to Pittsburgh, which was reached in the last days of October and the first of November, after a wearisome march across the mountains in heavy weather. Arrived in the western counties, the army found no opposition.

Meanwhile, on October 2, the standing committee met again at Parkinson's Ferry, and unanimously adopted resolutions declaring the general submission, and explaining the reasons why signatures to the amnesty had not been general. Findley and Red.i.c.k were appointed to take these resolutions to the President, and to urge him to stop the march of the troops. They met the left wing at Carlisle. Was.h.i.+ngton received them courteously, but did not consent to countermand the march. They hurried back for more unequivocal a.s.surances, which they hoped to be able to carry to meet Was.h.i.+ngton on his way to review the right wing. On October 14, the day of the autumn elections, general submissions were universally signed, and finally, on October 24, a third and last meeting was held at Parkinson's Ferry, at which a thousand people attended, when, with James Edgar, chairman, and Albert Gallatin, secretary, it was resolved, first, that the civil authority was fully competent to punish both past and future breaches of the law; secondly, that surrender should be made of all persons charged with offenses, in default of which the committee would aid in bringing them to justice; thirdly, that offices of inspection might be opened, and that the distillers were willing and ready to enter their stills.

These resolutions were published in the "Pittsburgh Gazette." Findley carried them to Bedford, but before he reached the army the President had returned to Philadelphia. The march of the army was not stopped. The two wings made a junction at Uniontown. Companies of horse were scattered through the country. New submissions were made, and the oath of allegiance, required by General Lee, was generally taken.

Hamilton now investigated the whole matter of the insurrection, and it was charged against him, and the charge is supported by Findley, with names of persons, that he spared no effort to secure evidence to bring Gallatin within the pale of an indictment. Of course he failed in this purpose, if indeed it were ever seriously entertained. But the belief that Gallatin was the arch-fiend, who instigated the Whiskey Insurrection, had already become a settled article in the Federalist creed, and for a quarter of a century, long after the Federalist party had become a tradition of the past, the Genevan was held up to scorn and hatred, as an incarnation of deviltry--an enemy of mankind.

On the 8th of November, Hamilton, who remained with the army, wrote to the President that General Lee had concluded to take hold of all who are worth the trouble by the military arm, and then to deliver them over to the disposition of the judiciary. In the mean time, he adds, "all possible means are using to obtain evidence, and accomplices will be turned against the others."

The night of November 13, 1794, was appointed for the arrests; a dreadful night Findley describes it to have been. The night was frosty; at eight o'clock the horse sallied forth, and before daylight arrested in their beds about two hundred men. The New Jersey horse made the seizures in the Mingo Creek settlement, the hot-bed of the insurrection and the scene of the early excesses. The prisoners were taken to Pittsburgh, and thence, mounted on horses, and guarded by the Philadelphia Gentlemen Corps, to the capital. Their entrance into Cannonsburg is graphically described by Dr. Carnahan, president of Princeton College, in his account of the insurrection.

"The contrast between the Philadelphia hors.e.m.e.n and the prisoners was the most striking that can be imagined. The Philadelphians were some of the most wealthy and respectable men of that city. Their uniform was blue, of the finest broadcloth. Their horses were large and beautiful, all of a bay color, so nearly alike that it seemed that every two of them would make a good span of coach horses.

Their trappings were superb. Their bridles, stirrups, and martingales glittered with silver. Their swords, which were drawn, and held elevated in the right hand, gleamed in the rays of the setting sun. The prisoners were also mounted on horses of all shapes, sizes, and colors; some large, some small, some long tails, some short, some fat, some lean, some every color and form that can be named. Some had saddles, some blankets, some bridles, some halters, some with stirrups, some with none. The riders also were various and grotesque in their appearance. Some were old, some young, some hale, respectable looking men; others were pale, meagre, and shabbily dressed. Some had great coats,--others had blankets on their shoulders. The countenance of some was downcast, melancholy, dejected; that of others, stern, indignant, manifesting that they thought themselves undeserving such treatment. Two Philadelphia hors.e.m.e.n rode in front and then two prisoners, and two hors.e.m.e.n and two prisoners, actually throughout a line extending perhaps half a mile.... If these men had been the ones chiefly guilty of the disturbance, it would have been no more than they deserved. But the guilty had signed the amnesty, or had left the county before the army approached."

Dallas, the secretary of state, Gallatin's friend, was one of this troop. Gallatin saw him soon after his return. In a letter to his wife of December 3, Gallatin relates the experience of the trooper who had little stomach for the work he had to do.

"I saw Dallas yesterday. Poor fellow had a most disagreeable campaign of it. He says the spirits, I call it the madness, of the Philadelphia Gentlemen's Corps was beyond conception before the arrival of the President. He saw a list (handed about through the army by officers, nay, by a general officer) of the names of those persons who were to be destroyed at all events, and you may easily guess my own was one of the most conspicuous. Being one day at table with sundry officers, and having expressed his opinion that, if the army were going only to support the civil authority, and not to do any military execution, one of them (Dallas did not tell me his name, but I am told it was one Ross of Lancaster, aide-de-camp to Mifflin) half drew a dagger he wore instead of a sword, and swore any man who uttered such sentiments ought to be dagged. The President, however, on his arrival, and afterwards Hamilton, took uncommon pains to change the sentiments, and at last it became fas.h.i.+onable to adopt, or at least to express, sentiments similar to those inculcated by them."

Randolph was, perhaps, not far out of the way in his fear of a civil war should blood be drawn, and in his conviction that the influence of Was.h.i.+ngton was the only sedative for the fevered political pulse. On November 17 general orders were issued for the return of the army, a detachment of twenty-five hundred men only remaining in the West, under command of General Morgan. There were no further disturbances. The army expenses gave a circulating medium, and the farmers, having now the means to pay their taxes, made no further complaints of the excise law.

The total expense of the insurrection to the government was $800,000.

Mr. Gallatin returned with his wife from his western home early in November. He had been again chosen at the October elections to represent Fayette in the Pennsylvania a.s.sembly. Moreover, at the same time, he was elected to represent the congressional district of Was.h.i.+ngton and Allegheny in the House of Representatives of the United States. Of four candidates Gallatin led the poll. Judge Brackenridge was next in order.

No better proof is needed of the firm hold Gallatin had in the esteem and affection of the people. No doubt, either, that they understood his principles, and relied upon his sincere attachment to the country he had made his home.