と

their respective inhabitants possessed. Such as they were, they have been paid more punctually by some of the western counties, and as punctually by all of them, as by any other part of the State. This fact will not be denied; its proof is to be found in the yearly official reports made to this House from the year 1785 to the present year. To prove likewise that the aversion to an excise law was not confined to those counties, it will be enough.co to mention that the excise law of Pennsylvania was merely nomi- n.law nal, so far as related to spirits distilled within her jurisdiction from domestic materials in almost every county of the State. This assertion, if denied, may also be proved, partly from official reports and partly by the evidence of some of the collectors themselves.

We shall find the charge, that the western counties were the ' first engaged in the circulation of opinions inimical to the excise system, to be equally unfounded. While the excise bill was pending before Congress on the 22d January, 1791, the House of Representatives of this State, upon the motion of two members from the city, adopted, by a large majority, resolutions expressive of their sense on the subject. They not only did so, but, in order that their opinions and the motives of their conduct might be known and circulated, they entered their reasons at large on the minutes of the 2d February, 1791, and in those reasons (which were published in the newspapers) they express their opinion that an excise law was, as it had been denominated by the Congress of 1774, "the horror of all free States," and that a very large portion of the people would be opposed to it under every possible modification.

Was it more criminal in the inhabitants of the western country than in this House to circulate their opinions? Can a circulation of opinions be called criminal? This doctrine, once adopted, would destroy the privilege, the constitutional privilege, of the citizens to assemble peaceably, to remonstrate, to discuss (... the measures of government, and to publish their thoughts. We must distinguish between a publication of sentiments and acting. We must distinguish between an opinion merely that this or that measure is wrong, promulgated in any manner whatever by individuals or collections of individuals, and an opinion to which

६

is annexed a declaration that those who give that opinion mean
to act in a certain manner or advise others to act. Whether the
opinion be right or wrong, as long as it is only an opinion, every-
body has a right to express it. To judge whether the determina-
tion or recommendation to act is justifiable or not, the nature of
the conduct thus avowed, either as the intention of the men or
as their advice, must be examined. Upon this principle, then,
the resolutions adopted at different times by meetings of certain
inhabitants of the western counties must be weighed and judged.
I will not hesitate to say that upon this principle all the resolu-
tions adopted by every one of those meetings, except that of
Washington on
1791, and that of Pittsburg on
the 24th of August, 1792, are perfectly justifiable, whether the
opinions which they express be in themselves right or wrong.

The meeting at Pittsburg in September, 1791, is particularly pointed out as chargeable with all the excesses that followed. I was not a member of that meeting; when it took place I was a member of the Legislature, and attended as such at the session held at that very time in this city; nor do the sentiments expressed in the resolutions which were there adopted correspond in many points either with my private opinions or with my public conduct. Yet I find nothing reprehensible in them; nor is there anything criminal or of a dangerous tendency in the measures they proposed: to remonstrate and to correspond with other parts of the State and of the Union with a view to procure the support of concurring petitions, where a coincidence of sentiments existed, seems to have been their only object; and they cannot be blamed if any individuals, whose views might be the same, embraced unjustifiable means in order to attain them.

The meeting held at Washington in 1791, and at Pittsburg on the 24th August, 1792, went farther. The persons assembled not only agreed to remonstrate, but they expressed a determination to hold no communication with, and to treat with contempt, such inhabitants of the western country as would accept offices under the law, and they recommended the same line of conduct to the people at large. I was one of the persons who composed the Pittsburg meeting, and I gave my assent to the resolutions. It might perhaps be said that the principle of those resolutions

was not new, as it was at least partially adopted on a former
period by a respectable society in this city,-a society that was
established during the late war in order to obtain a change of
the former constitution of Pennsylvania, and whose members,
if I am accurately informed, agreed to accept no offices under the
then existing government, and to dissuade others from accepting
them. I might say that those resolutions did not originate at
Pittsburg, as they were almost a transcript of the resolutions
adopted at Washington the preceding year; and I might even
add that they were not introduced by me at the meeting. But
I wish not to exculpate myself where I feel I have been to blame.
The sentiments thus expressed were not illegal or criminal, yet
I will freely acknowledge that they were violent, intemperate,
and reprehensible. For, by attempting to render the office con-
temptible, they tended to diminish that respect for the execution
of the laws which is essential to the maintenance of a free gov-
ernment; but, whilst I feel regret at the remembrance though
no hesitation in this open confession of that my only political sin,
let me add that the blame ought to fall where it is deserved.
The meeting did not call themselves delegates of the people, but
individuals voluntarily assembled. For my own part, I was not
sent thither; I was not desired to go by any collection or meet-
ing of individuals whatever. If this may be called a combina-
tion, still it was not a combination of the people. Whether, how-
ever, those resolutions did produce any acts of violence, in other ke
words, whether they were the cause or the effect
of the temper
of the people, may best be determined by the following observa-
tion. Many acts of violence had been committed before that
meeting, and it was immediately preceded by the suppression of
the office of inspection in Washington. Eight months elapsed
after that meeting without any outrages being committed; nor
indeed was the public tranquillity disturbed during the space of
fifteen months, except by a nocturnal riot in Fayette County,
in which only a few men were concerned, in which only threats
were used, and which terminated without any injury to persons
or property. It is even acknowledged that the law gained
ground during the year 1793. With the events subsequent to
that meeting I am but imperfectly acquainted. I came to Phila-

delphia a short time after it, and continued absent from the western country upon public business for eighteen months. Neither during that period of absence nor after my return to the western country in June last, until the riots had begun, had I the slightest conversation that I can recollect, much less any deliberate conference or correspondence, either directly or indirectly, with any of its inhabitants on the subject of the excise law. I became first acquainted with almost every act of violence committed, either before or since the meeting at Pittsburg, upon reading the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. A few observations may, however, be made tending to show that, however general the dislike to an excise law may have been, a spirit of illegal opposition was neither general nor supported by system or combination, and that the law was, as it has been acknowledged, gaining ground in 1793. It seems that the outrages committed before the month of July, 1794, which terminated in any actual violence offered to persons or property, were all committed by a few men, and were uniformly confined to that neighborhood in which the last riots likewise broke out. It also appears that offices of inspection were continued without interruption till the month of July, 1794, in Allegheny County, from the time of the law being enacted, and in Fayette County from the spring of 1792. An office was also established in Westmoreland County during last summer, and the county of Washington was the only one in which none existed. In the county of Fayette processes issued from the District Court of the United States for this State were served without interruption, in the spring of 1793, upon several distillers, who, it was alleged, had neglected to enter their stills in June, 1792, at the office of inspection, which, it was said, had then been opened in that county. The writs were obeyed, and the distillers entered their appearance at Philadelphia. The greatest obstacle, however, to the law being fully executed arose, perhaps, from the organization of the judiciary system. The distance of the Federal courts rendered prosecutions instituted there difficult and obnoxious. Complaints for private acts of violence could, it is true, be preferred before the State courts; but suits against delinquent distillers, those suits which alone could finally carry the law into effect, were not supposed to be within their

cognizance; and upon one occasion, indeed, a prosecution for a cause exclusively within their jurisdiction was instituted in the se Federal court; for it appears that the sheriff of Fayette County was indicted there for a supposed neglect in serving the process which had been issued against rioters by the judges of the State court for that county. The judges of the State courts were not, however, deficient in their duty. Whenever a riot or act of outrage had taken place, the charge to the grand jury pointedly urged the duty of finding bills against the offenders; but it was difficult to collect testimony, not only on account of the unwillingness of the people to attend as witnesses, but also for want of knowledge of the perpetrators. A prosecution was instituted by the man who had been abused in serving writs in the case of Johnson; he dropped it on receiving a compensation. In the case of Wilson, which has been much dwelt upon, on account of the circumstances of cruelty that accompanied it, a bill was unanimously found by the grand jury of Allegheny County against the persons supposed to be guilty; and although this prosecution was likewise dropped, as the prosecutor abruptly left the country, I am informed that the armed rioters who carried. off one of the witnesses for the Commonwealth, and who were supposed to be the same persons that had committed the original outrage, were for the latter offence prosecuted, convicted, and punished.

Congress, during their last session, removed, however, the difficulties that I have mentioned, and gave to the State courts a concurrent jurisdiction in all cases relative to the excise. A wish might perhaps be innocently indulged that the policy of this measure had undergone a fair experiment; and that, consistently with the general arrangements of general government, the institution of suits could have been restricted to the State courts until it had been practically proved whether, through the medium of their jurisdiction, the law could in future be carried into operation. What would have been the effect in three of the counties I can only conjecture; but I will assert that the experiment would have produced every beneficial consequence that could be expected to flow from it in the county in which I reside, and with the disposition of whose inhabitants I am best acquainted.