TOP

While the inhabitants of Kentucky were talking of insurrection, those of some of the western counties of Pennsylvania actually lifted the arm of defiance against the general government. In August, 1794, acts were committed in opposition to the ministers of the law, which called for the interference of the powers of the federal executive, and the episode in our history known as “The Whiskey Insurrection” was inaugurated. Properly to understand its character, we must take a brief glance at its antecedents. Some of these have already been alluded to in our consideration of the revenue system of the new government.

Among other taxes recommended by Secretary Hamilton for the support of the government, and authorized by a bill reported in the house of representatives in January, 1791, was one upon domestic distilled spirits and distilleries. As whiskey was almost entirely a luxury, and not a necessity, it seemed a just subject for levying a duty upon. And the College of Physicians of Philadelphia advocated it as desirable both to the morals and bodily health of the people. The bill was passed and received Washington's signature. It imposed a tax of from nine to twenty-six cents a gallon upon spirits distilled from grain. Regulations for the collection of these duties were made and officers appointed to collect them. Opposition to the law manifested itself in various parts of the Union immediately after its passage, but nowhere so prominently as in Pennsylvania. In July, 1791, a public meeting on the subject was held at Red Stone (Brownsville), when it was arranged that county committees should be convened at the different shire towns of Alleghany, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. In August, at a meeting of another committee already alluded to,[66] one of the resolutions adopted, as we have seen, declared, after condemning the law, that whosoever should accept office under it should be considered an enemy to his country, should be treated with contempt, and all intercourse with him be dissolved. These resolutions were published in a Pittsburgh paper and produced a feverish excitement.

Early in September another meeting was held in Pittsburgh. Twelve delegates were present, and many complaints against the government, in connection with the excise law, were recited. They adopted a representation to Congress, and a remonstrance to the legislature of Pennsylvania, against the excise on whiskey. Not long after this, a collector of the revenue for two of the counties before-named was seized, tarred and feathered, and deprived of his horse, by some armed men in disguise. The perpetrators were known, however, and processes were issued against them from the district court of Pennsylvania; but the public feeling was so strongly against the law, west of the Alleghany mountains, that, as a marshal to whom the writ was committed for execution said, “any attempt to serve it would have occasioned the most violent opposition from a greater portion of the inhabitants;” and he declared that if he had attempted it, he believed he would not have returned alive.

The resistance to law now assumed most alarming aspects. The meetings, said Secretary Hamilton in a report upon the subject, “composed of very influential persons, and conducted without moderation and prudence, were justly chargeable with the excesses which have from time to time been committed, serving to give consistency to an opposition, which had at length matured to a point that threatened the foundations of the government and the Union, unless speedily and effectually subdued.”

The working of the federal government was then merely experimental, and those who had charge of the complicated and precious machine, and regarded it as the very ark of freedom, used its powers with wise caution. Therefore, while occasional outrages in connection with the excise laws were perpetrated, it was thought best to let coercive measures against the law-breakers remain untried, until at the next session of Congress some modifications of the law might be made to allay excitement.

In May, 1792, an act of Congress became a law which materially modified the provisions of the excise act. The duty on whiskey and stills was so reduced as to silence all complaints on that head. All serious objections to the old law were considered, and the act was so amended as to promise peace; but there were men of influence who would not accept these concessions, and they kept up the opposition excitement. The well-disposed citizens were intimidated by the violent ones of the opposition. In August, 1792, a meeting of the malcontents was held at Pittsburgh, at which resolutions were passed no less objectionable than those adopted the year before. After denouncing the tax on spirituous liquors, they concluded by declaring that they considered it their duty to “persist in remonstrances to Congress and every other legal measure that might obstruct the operations of the law.” Almost daily outrages were committed, and three or four counties of western Pennsylvania assumed many of the features of openly rebellious communities. It was then that Washington, under the advice of Hamilton and others, issued his proclamation of September the sixteenth, 1792, warning all persons to desist from such unlawful combinations, et cetera.[67] Some legal steps were taken against the malcontents, but these and the proclamation were of little effect toward subduing the rebellious and quieting the excitement. The officers of the law were still defied, denounced, insulted, and abused.

At the next session of Congress (1792-'93) inefficient efforts were made to amend the excise laws. The forbearance of the federal government was construed by the ringleaders of the opposition as weakness, and they became more bold. Distillers who were willing to comply with the law were abused. Finally, the Congress passed an act, which became a law in 1794, calculated to strengthen the executive arm in enforcing obedience. This law made the opposition still more earnest and bold; and few men in the district of country where they exercised a sort of reign of terror dared openly to dissent from their views. So general was the combined influence of actual disaffection upon one portion of the community, and dread of the violence of the turbulent, among the others, that out of the family connection of General Neville, inspector of revenues, the employÉes of the government, and two others, there were none in Pittsburgh who dared to condemn these lawless proceedings, for fear of personal harm. Mails were robbed; Neville's house was twice attacked and finally burned by an armed party of lawless men; and preparations were made to seize Fort Fayette, in that region. Among the leaders of the insurgents was one Bradford, who, by common consent, appears to have assumed the position of commander-in-chief. At this time the insurrectionary spirit had spread into adjoining counties of Maryland and Virginia, and Bradford and his associate leaders issued a call for the assembling of the militia on Braddock's field, on the first of August, with arms and accoutrements, and provisions for four days. Within three days seven thousand men were assembled, some of them out of curiosity, but a greater part with the determination to follow, in resistance to the federal and state governments, wherever Bradford and others might lead.

It was Bradford's design to seize Fort Pitt and its arms and ammunition; but he found most of the militia officers unwilling to co-operate in such an overt act of treason. But they readily consented to the perpetration of outrages against excise officers, and the whole country in that region was governed, for the moment, by the combined powers of mobocracy and military despotism.

When intelligence of these proceedings reached the president, he called his cabinet into council. All regarded the movement as a critical one for the republic. The example of the insurgents in Pennsylvania might become infectious; for the Democratic societies, spread all over the land, while they professed to oppose and deprecate violence, openly denounced the excise laws, and, no doubt, secretly fomented rebellion against the federal government. It was agreed in the cabinet council that forbearance must now end, and the effective power of the executive be put forth to suppress the rising rebellion. Accordingly, on the seventh of August, Washington issued a proclamation warning the insurgents to disperse, and declaring, that if tranquillity should not be restored in the disturbed counties before the first of September, an armed force would be employed to compel submission to the laws.[68] At the same time the president made a requisition on the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, for militia sufficient to compose an army of twelve thousand men.

To the chief magistrate of the latter state, his friend and companion-in-arms, General Henry Lee, Washington wrote privately, from Germantown, on the twenty-sixth of August, and said, “It is with equal pride and satisfaction I add, that, as far as my information extends, this insurrection is viewed with universal indignation and abhorrence, except by those who have never missed an opportunity, by side-blows and otherwise, to attack the general government.... I consider this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic societies, brought forth, I believe, too prematurely for their own views, which may contribute to the annihilation of them.

“That these societies were instituted by the artful and designing members (many of their body, I have no doubt, mean well, but know little of the real plan), primarily to sow among the people the seeds of jealousy and distrust of the government, by destroying all confidence in the administration of it, and that their doctrines have been budding and blowing ever since, is not new to any one who is acquainted with the character of their leaders and has been attentive to their manoeuvres. I early gave it as my opinion, to the confidential characters around me, that if these societies were not counteracted (not by prosecutions, the ready way to make them grow stronger), or did not fall into disesteem from the knowledge of their origin, and the views with which they had been instituted by their father, Genet, for purposes well known to the government, they would shake the government to its foundation. Time and circumstances have confirmed me in this opinion, and I deeply regret the probable consequences; not as they will effect me personally—for I have not long to act on this theatre, and sure I am that not a man amongst them can be more anxious to put me aside than I am to sink into the profoundest retirement—but because I see, under a display of popular and fascinating disguises, the most diabolical attempts to destroy the best fabric of human government and happiness that has ever been presented for the acceptance of mankind.”

Washington's proclamation had very little effect in suppressing the lawless acts of the insurgents, and on the twenty-fifth of September he issued a second proclamation, in which he vividly described the perverse spirit in which the lenient propositions of the government had been met, and declared his determination to reduce the refractory and lawless men to obedience.[69]The president now determined to act with vigor against the insurgents. He appointed Governor Lee, of Virginia, the commander-in-chief. General Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, was appointed his second in command. Governor Howell, of New Jersey, the third; and General Daniel Morgan, the veteran leader of the riflemen in the War for Independence, the fourth. General Hand, of Pennsylvania, was appointed adjutant-general.

From the best information that the president could obtain, it was supposed that there were in the rebellious counties about sixteen thousand men capable of bearing arms, and that at least seven thousand of them might be brought into the field. It was therefore resolved to employ a sufficient force at once to put down all opposition. The number of militia first called for was twelve thousand; it was subsequently increased to fifteen thousand. The place of rendezvous appointed for the New Jersey troops under Howell, and the Pennsylvanians under Mifflin, was Bedford, in Pennsylvania. Those from Virginia and Maryland—the former under General Morgan, and the latter under General Smith, the hero of Fort Mifflin in 1777, and now the Baltimore member of Congress—assembled at Cumberland, on the Potomac. The latter formed the left wing of the gathering army, and were directed to march across the mountains by Braddock's road. Those under Mifflin and Howell composed the right wing, and were ordered to cross the mountains by the more northern route, over which Forbes and his army crossed in 1758.

These martial preparations were made after every peaceful effort had been exhausted. As we have observed, the president had issued two proclamations before ordering the militia into the field. He had also, at the time of issuing the first proclamation, appointed three federal commissioners—Senator Ross, Mr. Bradford, the attorney-general, and Yates, a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania—to visit the insurgent counties, with discretionary powers to arrange, if possible, prior to the fourteenth of September, an effectual submission to the laws, offering lenient terms to the offenders. These were joined by Chief-Justice M'Kean and General Irvine, commissioners appointed by the state of Pennsylvania. At the same time, Governor Mifflin issued two proclamations—one calling the Pennsylvania legislature together; the other requiring submission on the part of the rioters, and announcing his determination to obey the president's call for militia.

These commissioners had crossed the mountains together, and at Parkinson's ferry they found representatives from almost every town of four insurgent counties, two hundred in number, assembled in convention, having Judge Cook, of Fayette county, for their president, and Albert Gallatin, afterward a distinguished officer of the federal government, for their secretary. The business was in charge of a vigilance committee of sixty. Near the place of meeting, which was upon a commanding eminence under the shade of trees, stood a liberty-pole, bearing a placard with the words, “Liberty and no excise! No asylum for cowards and traitors!”

The vigilance committee appointed a sub-committee of fifteen to confer with the state and federal commissioners. On that committee were, Bradford, the chief leader of the insurgents, Gallatin, Cook, Marshall, and Brackenridge, the latter a young and ambitious lawyer of Pittsburgh. All of these, except Bradford, perceiving the dangers with which they were surrounded, were favorable to submission. Bradford's voice was for war, and the organization of a separate and independent state west of the mountains. This committee declared the propositions of the commissioners to be reasonable, and to the town organizations the whole matter of submission was referred. These generally refused compliance. The federal commissioners returned to Philadelphia and reported the virtual failure of their mission. Then it was that the president issued his proclamation of the twenty-fifth of September, and prepared to use coercive measures.

Washington determined to lead the army in person against the insurgents, if it should appear to be expedient. He accordingly left Philadelphia at the beginning of October, accompanied by the secretary of war, whose department was left in charge of Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury. Just before he left, the president received a letter from the venerable Morgan, written at Winchester on the twenty-fourth of September. “I am sorry to understand,” wrote the brave old rifleman, “the difficulty experienced in the state of Pennsylvania to raise the quota of men to suppress that horrid insurrection on their frontiers.[70] The state of Virginia seems to be unanimous and determined to suppress it; and it is my opinion that we shall, in a very few days, have men enough to do that business. For my part, I wish I was at Morgantown at this time with two thousand men, which would be as many as I could ask, with what would join me at this place, to bring these people to order.... I wish an accommodation may not be patched up with these rioters, under an apprehension of not getting troops to suppress them. Virginia could, and would, furnish an army sufficient for that purpose.... I don't wish to spill the blood of a citizen; but I wish to march against these people, to show them our determination to bring them to order, and to support the laws. I took the liberty to write you this, lest your intelligence might not be so good, or that this might throw some light, or be of some service.”

This letter, from his old companion-in-arms, was only one of many of similar tone that Washington received at that time. Coming from such an esteemed veteran (with whom was the president's favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, as aid-de-camp), it was peculiarly grateful to Washington, and he responded in earnest tone, from Carlisle, on the eighth of October. “Although I regret the occasion,” he said, “which has called you into the field, I rejoice to hear you are there, and because it is probable I may meet you at Fort Cumberland, whither I shall proceed as soon as I see the troops at this rendezvous in condition to advance. At that place, or at Bedford, my ulterior resolution must be taken, either to advance with the troops into the insurgent counties of this state, or to return to Philadelphia, for the purpose of meeting Congress, the third of next month. Imperious circumstances alone can justify my absence from the seat of government whilst Congress is in session; but if these, from the disposition of the people in the refractory counties and the state of the information I expect to receive at the advanced posts, should appear to exist, the lesser must yield to the greater duties of my office, and I shall cross the mountains with the troops; if not, I shall place the command of the combined troops under the orders of Governor Lee, of Virginia, and repair to the seat of government.”

In a private letter to Randolph, the secretary of state, on the following day, the president said, “The insurgents are alarmed, but not yet brought to their proper senses. Every means is devised by themselves and their associates to induce a belief that there is no necessity for troops crossing the mountains; although we have information, at the same time, that part of the people there are obliged to embody themselves to repel the insults of another part.”

The Pennsylvania troops moved forward from Carlisle on the tenth of October, and Washington proceeded to Fort Cumberland, the place of rendezvous for the Maryland and Virginia troops, where he arrived on the sixteenth. Quite a large number were already there, and fifteen hundred more from Virginia were near at hand. There Washington received such information as convinced him that the spirits of the insurgents were broken, and that the greatest alarm prevailed in their ranks. He hastened on to Bedford, thirty miles distant, and there this intelligence was confirmed. Satisfied that his presence would be no longer needed with the army, he arranged a plan of operations against the insurgents, and prepared to return to Philadelphia; “but not,” he said in a letter to Randolph, “because the impertinence of Mr. Bache [editor of the “General Advertiser,” the opposition paper] or his correspondent has undertaken to pronounce that I can not constitutionally command the army whilst Congress are in session.”

The command of the army was left with Governor Lee. On the twentieth of October he received from Washington his instructions, drawn by Hamilton, with a letter from the president's own hand, in which he said, “I can not take my departure without conveying to you, through the army under your command, the very high sense I entertain of the enlightened and patriotic zeal for the constitution and the laws, which has led them cheerfully to quit their families, homes, and the comforts of private life, to undertake, and thus far to perform, a long and fatiguing march, and to encounter and endure the hardships and privations of a military life.... No citizens of the United States can ever be engaged in a service more important to their country. It is nothing less than to consolidate and to preserve the blessings of that Revolution which, at much expense of blood and treasure, constituted us a free and independent nation. It is to give the world an illustrious example, of the utmost consequence to the cause of mankind.” Then cautioning the troops against committing the least infraction of the laws, or trenching upon the functions of the civil authorities, he thanked them for the readiness with which they had seconded him “in the most delicate and momentous duty the chief magistrate of a free people can have to perform.”

Hamilton remained with the army as the president's civil representative; also the secretary of war; and Washington hastened back to Philadelphia, where he arrived on the twenty-sixth of October. The troops crossed the Alleghany mountains in a heavy rain, marching sometimes in mud up to their knees. The two wings formed a junction at Uniontown; and as they advanced into the insurgent country, all signs of rebellion disappeared. The leaders fled, and all upon whom rested the eye of suspicion quailed in its glance and hastened to make excuses. Early in November, Lee issued a proclamation, confirming an amnesty that had been offered to those entitled to it, and calling upon all of the inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Many arrests were soon afterward made. A large number were dismissed at once because of a want of evidence against them; others were bound over to keep the peace; and a few were sent to Philadelphia for trial.[71] Two only were convicted of capital offences—one of arson, the other of robbing the mails—and these, because of palliating circumstances, were finally pardoned by the president. Most of the troops were speedily withdrawn from the disaffected counties and dismissed; but a body of twenty-five hundred, under General Morgan, remained encamped in the district through the winter.

Thus terminated a rebellion, that at one time threatened the very existence of the Union, without the shedding of a drop of blood. This result was owing chiefly to the wisdom, prudence, energy, and personal popularity of Washington; and that which appeared so ominous of evil was overruled for the production of good. The government was amazingly strengthened by the event. The federal authority was fully vindicated; and the general rally in its support when the chief sounded his bugle-call, even of those who had hitherto leaned toward the opposition, was a significant omen of future stability and power. Every honest man expressed his reprobation of the violent resistance to law; and the democratic societies, the chief fomenters of the insurrection, showed symptoms of a desire to be less conspicuous. Hamilton, who had always distrusted the strength of the government in such an emergency, was now perfectly convinced of its inherent power; and both he and Washington regarded the affair as a fortunate circumstance for the nation.

In relation to this event and its effects, Washington, in a letter to Mr. Jay, written soon after his return to Philadelphia from the different rendezvous of the troops, said that the subject would be represented differently according to the wishes of some and the prejudices of others, who might exhibit it as an evidence of what had been predicted, namely, that the people of the new republic were unable to govern themselves. “Under this view of the subject,” he said, “I am happy in giving it to you as the general opinion that this event having happened at the time it did was fortunate, although it will be attended with considerable expense.

“That the self-created societies,” he continued, “which have spread themselves over this country have been laboring incessantly to sow the seeds of distrust, jealousy, and of course discontent, thereby hoping to effect some revolution in the government, is not unknown to you. That they have been the fomenters of the western disturbances, admits of no doubt in the mind of any one who will examine their conduct; but, fortunately, they precipitated a crisis for which they were not prepared, and thereby have unfolded views which will, I trust, effectuate their annihilation sooner than it might otherwise have happened; at the same time, that it has afforded an occasion for the people of this country to show their abhorrence of the result, and their attachment to the constitution and the laws; for I believe that five times the number of militia that was required would have come forward, if it had been necessary, in support of them.

“The spirit which blazed out on this occasion, as soon as the object was fully understood and the lenient measures of the government were made known to the people, deserves to be communicated. There are instances of general officers going at the head of a single troop, and of light companies; of field-officers, when they came to the places of rendezvous, and found no command for them in that grade, turning into the ranks, and proceeding as private soldiers, under their own captains; and of numbers, possessing the first fortunes in the country, standing in the ranks of private men, and marching day by day with their knapsacks and haversacks at their backs, sleeping on straw with a single blanket in a soldier's tent, during the frosty nights which we have had, by way of example to others. Nay, more; many young Quakers of the first families, character, and property, not discouraged by the elders, have turned into the ranks and are marching with the troops.

“These things have terrified the insurgents, who had no conception that such a spirit prevailed; but, while the thunder only rumbled at a distance, were boasting of their strength, and wishing for and threatening the militia by turns, intimating that the arms they should take from them would soon become a magazine in their hands. Their language is much changed indeed, but their principles want correction.

“I shall be more prolix in my speech to Congress on the commencement and progress of this insurrection than is usual in such an instrument, or than I should have been on any other occasion; but as numbers at home and abroad will hear of the insurrection, and will read the speech, that may know nothing of the documents to which it might refer, I conceived it would be better to encounter the charge of prolixity by giving a cursory detail of facts, that would show the prominent features of the thing, than to let it go naked into the world, to be dressed up according to the fancy or inclination of the readers, or the policy of our enemies.”[72]