CHAPTER rages, had been resorted to for the punishment and terror V. of the federal officers and others who lent their services 1790. and assistance toward the enforcement of the law.

Washington county, in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, between the Monongahela and the Virginia line, was the most violent of all. Such was the report made by Clymer, who had been appointed supervisor for Pennsylvania, and who had visited the western counties, that he might personally inspect the condition of things. Bradford, a native of Maryland, who had formerly advocated, with much warmth, the erection of the western counties into a separate state, and who was now the prosecuting officer for Washington county, was one leader; another was Marshall, an early settler, originally from the north of Ireland, a man of large property, and also holding office as registrar of the county. Fayette county, on the opposite side of the Monongahela, in which Smilie and Gallatin were the most influential persons, was hardly more moderate, though fewer acts of violence had been perpetrated there. Under the influence of the canny and cautious Findley, whom we have met with already as a member of Congress, and who became ultimately a conspicuous leader of the opposition, Westmoreland county, at the western foot of the mountains, had been kept out of combinations and committees; but the officers had no better treatment there than in Washington and Fayette. Allegany county, in which Pittsburg was situated, had been less violent in opposition, yet there were among the inhabitants none who had courage enough to advocate the law. According to Clymer, the influence of Smilie and Findley, who were great anti-Federalists, had destroyed all regard for the government of the United States, for which purpose they used the excise as an instrument; indeed, Clymer designated

V.

Findley as the father of all the disturbances in the west- CHAPTER ern country. Individuals there were who thought rightly, but all the men of distinction were either sordid shop- 1792. keepers, crafty lawyers, or candidates for office, not inclined to make personal sacrifices to truth and honor; nor, in Clymer's opinion, were the duties of citizenship likely to be well understood where the moral sense was so generally depraved by the intemperate use of the favorite drink.

The immediate inducement to this visit of Clymer's was a sort of convention of the four counties, held at Pitts- Aug. 21. burg, of which Gallatin had been secretary, and at which Smilie and several other influential persons had been present; a repetition, in fact, of a similar convention held there the year before.

A remarkable series of resolu

tions, drawn up by a committee of which Gallatin, Bradford, and Marshall were members, had been adopted at this meeting. After denouncing the excise as unjust, dangerous to liberty, oppressive to the poor, and particularly oppressive to the Western country, where grain could only be disposed of by distilling it, these resolutions declared a fixed intention to persist in remonstrances and in every other "legal measure" that might obstruct the collection of the tax. They expressed, also, a determination to have no dealings nor intercourse with any person who might take office to execute the law, but to treat all such persons with contempt, and to withdraw from them every comfort and assistance. A committee of correspondence was appointed, and the adoption of a like course was recommended to the people at large.

By way of reply to these high-handed proceedings, the president had issued a proclamation, exhorting all persons Sept. 29. to desist from unlawful combinations, and charging all magistrates and courts to use their utmost endeavors to

CHAPTER bring infractors of the law to justice. Washington, at V. this moment, was absent at Mount Vernon, on his sec1792. ond visit; and the proclamation, drafted by Hamilton,

Knox, and Randolph, who remained at Philadelphia in the management of affairs, was sent thither for his sig nature, and then to Jefferson, at Monticello, to be countersigned by him, a formality which Washington particularly insisted on. Orders were likewise given to Ran

dolph, at Hamilton's suggestion, to commence prosecutions against those concerned in the Pittsburg meeting; but that proceeding had to be abandoned, as the attorney could find no law on which it could be based.

In North Carolina the proclamation of the president seems to have answered a good purpose. Little further resistance to the excise occurred in that quarter. But in Western Pennsylvania the opposition still continued so general and determined as effectually to prevent the collection of the tax.

To the conduct of these Western demagogues, in stirring up a violent opposition to the law of the land, the cotemporaneous behavior of Chief Justice Jay exhibited a striking and honorable contrast. Jay had been selected as the federal candidate for governor of New York in opposition to Clinton, and, after a very warm and excited canvass, his election had been carried by a majority of about four hundred votes. The duty of canvassing the returns and declaring the result belonged to a committee of the Legislature, of whom a majority were friends of Governor Clinton. That majority took advantage of some very nice and doubtful technical objections as to the persons by whom the returns had been forwarded to reject the votes of three counties, after which, against the protest of four of their number, they June. pronounced Clinton to be elected by a majority of about

V.

a hundred votes. Rufus King gave a written legal CHAPTER opinion that as the alleged informalities depended upon a very strict construction of the statute, and operated to 1792. deprive bona fide electors of their right of suffrage, no attention ought to be paid to them-a view of the matter now universally adopted in similar cases. But the decision made by the canvassers was supported by the counter-opinion of Aaron Burr, who from this time assumed a rank in the anti-Federal party of New York second only, and not long even second, to that of Clinton himself. The Federalists were violently excited, and even talked of refusing to recognize Clinton as governor. Instead of inflaming their passions and stimulating them to a course which could only end in confusion and disorder, Jay did his utmost to calm the excitement, and to induce his friends patiently to submit to a decision which, however it might seem dictated by a selfish disregard of popular rights and a determination to secure a party triumph at all hazards, had yet been made by a competent authority, and was therefore entitled to respect and obedience. The best way, so Jay told his friends, was to wait till the next election, leaving it to the ballot-box to set the matter right.

During the late session of Congress, Philadelphia had been visited by deputations from the Six Nations, obtained through the influence of Kirkland the missionary, and from the Cherokees, sent on by Governor Blount to confirm the recent treaty. These deputations had been dismissed, well satisfied with their reception. The annual payment to the Cherokees had been raised to $1500. A similar annual payment had been promised to the Six Nations, to be expended in clothing, in domestic animals. and implements of husbandry, and in procuring blacksmiths and other artificers to reside in the Indian vil

Accord

CHAPTER lages. Hendricks, chief of the Stockbridge tribe, now V. associated with the Six Nations, promised, in return, to 1792. make a new attempt to pacify the hostile nations of the West. Still, however, there was much occasion for anxiety in the existing state of Indian affairs. ing to Seagrove, late commissioner to Florida to negotiate for the return of runaway slaves, and recently appointed agent for the Creeks, the Spaniards were determined to prevent the carrying out of the treaty of New York with that confederacy. M'Gillivray was said to be growing unfriendly, and to be disposed to accept a Spanish agency. Nor was this the only difficulty. The frontier inhabitants of Georgia, greatly dissatisfied with the stipulations of the treaty as to the Indian boundary line, were strongly disposed to provoke a war. "To such lengths have matters gone," wrote Seagrove, “that they now consider the troops and servants of the United States who are placed among them nearly as great enemies as they do the Indians, and for no other reason than that they recommend moderation, and a compliance with the laws of the land." In reference to this state of things, a letter was addressed by the War Department to Telfair, the governor of Georgia; but the state authorities sympathized strongly with the popular sentiment.

The settlements about Nashville had been repeatedly attacked in the course of the two last years, as was supposed, by marauding parties from the Upper Creeks. More than a hundred persons within that period had been killed or taken prisoners. Other like depredations, though not so numerous, had occurred in the eastern district of Tennessee, and on the western frontier of South Carolina and Georgia. The five Lower Cherokee towns, whose intercourse was frequent with the Shawanese, had been