A Sovereign People

by Carol Berkin

  Mifflin soon replied, beginning his letter with a fervent if defensive denial that he intended any disrespect or disobedience. “I thought,” he declared in a long letter addressed directly to Washington, “I had manifested the strongest sense of my federal obligations… and… expressly recognized the subjection of [Pennsylvania’s] individual authority to the national jurisdiction.” But what began as an apology for any misunderstanding segued quickly into another spirited defense of his actions. He could not be expected to adopt the preliminary measure the president had desired under a Pennsylvania act that had been repealed. He had no irrefutable evidence when he and the president met that the Pennsylvania courts were unable to enforce the laws; indeed, the only evidence to the contrary were “the hearsay of Colonel Mentges and the vague narrative of the post rider.” Before closing, Mifflin shifted from a defensive to a decidedly aggressive stance, expressing his concern that the president might be planning to abuse his authority. He hoped, he wrote, that the military force the federal government was assembling would be used solely to quell the rioters, not to enforce the excise tax as well.80

  Mifflin’s stubborn insistence that force was unnecessary did not matter. For on August 7, the same day that Washington issued his proclamation, the president instructed Henry Knox to order Mifflin to “forthwith… issue your orders for organizing and holding in readiness to march at a moment’s warning, a Corps of the Militia of Pennsylvania.” Mifflin, now convinced he had no choice but to comply, moved to ensure that the Pennsylvania assembly would share the responsibility for calling out state militia to march against its fellow citizens. It is likely that the expected arrival of thousands of troops from states loyal to the Union, far more than any respect for the president’s authority, had prompted Mifflin’s surrender.81

  On August 8, an unexpected emissary arrived in Philadelphia from the West. Hugh Henry Brackenridge had come to bear witness to the bleak prospects facing both the government and the rebels. He spoke with the authority of one who had been part of the resistance movement from its inception. It was true, he confessed to Hamilton’s undersecretary, Tench Coxe, that he had continued to attend the meetings and conventions held by the insurgents even after the violence against Neville, but only to urge moderation rather than armed resistance. Although he and other moderates had managed to save Pittsburgh from an attack by the burgeoning rebel army, Brackenridge warned that the insurgents were now far more dangerous because they were entirely irrational. He hastened to add that the targets of their abuse were equally irrational. Presley Neville, for example, suffered under the delusion that Brackenridge was a rebel warlord himself.

  By August, Brackenridge said, he had become frantic, equally fearful of being punished by the whiskey rebels as a traitor to the cause and arrested by the authorities as a traitor to his country. He was under no illusions about how large and powerful the resistance movement had grown. The rebels, he told Coxe, had won over the majority of the people of the four western counties and of three Virginia counties as well. This whole tramontane region was on the brink of seceding from the Union and creating an independent country of its own. The root cause of the discontent was not the excise tax alone but the entire Hamiltonian system, from assumption, to the creation of a bank, to the failure to distinguish the original holders of the debt from speculators. “There is a growing, lurking discontent at this system,” he declared, and it was “ready to burst out and discover itself everywhere.” If the government attempted to suppress these people, “the question will not be whether you will march to Pittsburgh, but whether they will march to Philadelphia, accumulating in their course and swelling over the banks of the Susquehanna like a torrent, irresistible and devouring in its progress.”82

  Whether Brackenridge’s dire—and highly dramatic—prediction of civil war and secession would prove true depended, in part, on the success or failure of Washington’s peace commission. The prognosis was not good. On August 14, a rebel congress representing five western Pennsylvania counties and Ohio County, Virginia, met at Parkinson’s Ferry. More than two hundred delegates, both radical and moderate, attended. A body of 250 armed men also came as observers. The meeting was thus so large that it had to be held outdoors. The mood was decidedly defiant, as the liberty poles erected in the area demonstrated. The rebels had created their own flag, its six stripes of alternating red and white representing the unity of the counties at the congress. To the surprise of everyone present, word arrived on August 15 that members of the president’s federal peace commission were nearby.83

  The commissioners were eager to meet with the rebels but not optimistic about the outcome of deliberations. Attorney General William Bradford had sided with Randolph in urging a delay in the use of military force but like Randolph, he had seen the delay as a political move unlikely to result in any actual progress. When the peace negotiations inevitably failed and the insurgents’ unreasonableness was revealed, he was certain the public would rally in support of the president and his turn to military action.

  Bradford’s reports to Randolph, even before negotiations began, had been consistently negative. His pessimism was reinforced by conversations along the route to the rebel congress with men like General Neville and Marshal Lenox that convinced Bradford the violence and intimidation of revenue officers was spreading. In a letter of August 15, he told the secretary of state that a force of some two to three hundred insurgents had recently descended upon the home of the collector for Bedford County. Neighbors prevented the destruction of the man’s property, but he was captured and forced not only to resign his office but also to tear his commission to pieces and trample on it. As Bradford and his fellow commissioner Yeates traveled west, they heard other disturbing stories and rumors, including that Governor Mifflin’s proclamation urging obedience to the law had been ridiculed and that the western counties had already declared independence.84

  Writing to Henry Knox on August 17, Isaac Craig seconded Bradford’s pessimism. Given all they had seen and heard already, Craig told Knox the commissioners could not help but be “Pritty [sic] well Convinced that the powers they are vested with will have but a small effect in bringing the Misguided multitude to a sence [sic] of their duty as Citizens of the United States.” Craig’s sentiments were echoed in the commissioners’ report that same day. Despite a firm belief that their peace mission was quixotic, Bradford and his fellow commissioners prepared a letter to be presented to the insurgents. Soon afterward, they met in Pittsburgh with a small special committee appointed as negotiators by the rebel congress. This committee included Brackenridge, who had returned home after his Cassandra-like testimony, and was now back in the good graces of the rebels. The remaining committee members were the moderate Albert Gallatin and two of the most radical leaders of the resistance, David Bradford and James Marshall.

  At the meeting, the commissioners described their mission as “frankly and sincerely” as possible to the special committee. The president, they said, was eager for a peaceful resolution to the crisis but was ready to take military action if necessary. The rebels must provide full assurances that the people will obey the law in order to avoid that action. And they must act quickly. Their authority to negotiate would end on September 1; after that, “no indulgence will be given to any future offence against the United States.”85

  The commission’s quid pro quos had been stated. On August 22, the special committee asked whether the pardons proposed depended on individuals keeping the peace or on the whole region doing so. Does an individual who is granted amnesty lose it if the community breaks the peace? The committee members then frankly admitted that, though they thought acceding to the law was the best idea, they could not promise that the people would follow that decision. A flurry of notes back and forth followed, with clarifications of terms by the commissioners and additional requests by the rebels’ committee. The commissioners received an encouraging letter from Cook, saying the committee approved of the terms offered and promised to report those te
rms faithfully to the people. Some tension arose when the rebels asked that members from Virginia’s Ohio County also be covered by the promise of pardons, but the commissioners explained that their instructions covered only the four Pennsylvania counties. The Virginians made an effort to save face, declaring that they were cutting off all negotiations “untell we Consult our Constaituents & the Cometee of Safety [sic].”86

  There was little more the commissioners could do but wait until their next meeting with the insurgents on September 2. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, the president and his cabinet were finalizing preparations for military action. On August 24, Washington had called Randolph and Hamilton to his Philadelphia home. The meeting signaled both the president’s certainty that deploying troops was inevitable and his conviction that the American people would soon have firm evidence that the insurgents did not want peace. Washington wanted a frank intelligence report from his two cabinet members. How many additional troops might be needed? When should the public in the states supplying troops be informed of the mobilization? What were the details of troop placement and rendezvous points? The questions reflected Washington’s long career as a military man before he took the reins of government.

  When Hamilton reported that 1,500 additional men were needed, it was decided to draw them not from Pennsylvania but from three neighboring states. Other decisions were made, too: the New Jersey militia would gather at Carlisle; the Pennsylvania militias at Carlisle and Chambersburgh; Maryland at Williamsport; and Virginia at Winchester. They would all unite at Bedford and Cumberland by October 1. Yet Washington’s natural caution led him to a final choice. Although the governors of Maryland and New Jersey had announced their orders for mobilization in mid-August, the president asked the governor of his home state of Virginia to wait until September 2 to make his mobilization order public. There was no need to give the anti-administration party of Jefferson, so strong in that state, too much time to protest.87

  On August 28, the promised meeting of the insurgents’ executive body, the Committee of Sixty, took place. The federal commissioners allowed themselves the small hope that this committee would agree to set in motion the general population’s oath of obedience to the law. This hope was dashed, however, when a sizeable number of radicals on the executive committee demurred, accusing their own negotiators of accepting bribes from the government and refusing to ask the people of their communities to comply with the law. Although the committee ultimately voted 34 to 23 to agree to the commissioners’ demands, the size of the opposition created a problem for the federal government. Most westerners would interpret the close vote as a rejection of the government’s terms while the general American public was likely to see it as a decision to submit. This would allow the resistance to continue while the public would judge a military expedition unnecessary.

  On August 29, a new committee of rebel negotiators, calling itself the Committee of Conference, submitted a request to delay compliance with the law. It wanted until October 11 so that it could “take the sense of the people.” The commissioners’ reply came swiftly: no. They saw no reason why, suddenly, the rebel leaders had to go back to the people for instructions. “You represented the people; you were their voice; now you want to ask them to say yea or nay?” To temporize in this fashion, the commissioners argued, was dishonorable. The September 1 deadline would stand. The leadership had until the end of the day to declare its readiness to support a submission to the laws of the United States.88

  By this time, most state officials in the western counties were urging compliance with the commissioners’ terms. Even Judge Alexander Addison, who had, from the beginning, sympathized with his fellow westerners’ complaints and had downplayed the violence they had committed, now exhorted the rebels to relent. In his charge to the grand jury of Allegheny County on September 1, Addison spoke emotionally about the choice before the rebels. “If we accept the terms we shall have peace. If we reject them we shall have war.” The stakes, he declared, were too high for the president to back down now. His choice was stark: “The whole force of the United States must be exerted to support its authority now, or the government of the United States must cease to exist.” Alexander Hamilton could not have said it better.89

  Like Addison, the members of the rebel committee knew this was the only option. On September 2, they declared their conviction that it was in the interest and duty of the people to submit. They were now ready to work with the commissioners to fix the time, place, and manner of securing the loyalty of the people. An agreement soon followed, its terms unequivocal and surely humiliating: All citizens eighteen years and older must assemble in their township on Thursday, September 11, between noon and 7 p.m. Under the direction of two or more members of the Parkinson Ferry leadership, or a justice of the peace, they were to publicly answer these questions: “Do you now engage to submit to the laws of the United States, and that you will not hereafter, directly or indirectly oppose the execution of the revenue acts? Will you support the civil authority in protecting all revenue officers and other citizens? Answer yea or nay.” The yeas and nays were to be immediately counted, and all who answered yea were to sign a written declaration to henceforth “submit to the laws of the United States.” These declarations were to be signed in the presence of the Parkinson Ferry committee members or the justice of the peace. On September 13, these officials would report the results and give their opinion whether the community’s submission was general enough to allow an office of inspection to be immediately established in the county. The final reports were to be transmitted to the commissioners, waiting at Uniontown, on or before September 16.90

  If all these conditions were met, the commissioners made three new promises in return. There would be no prosecutions for treason or any other indictable offense committed against the United States if those who committed these offenses had given the assurances required. On July 10, 1795, a general pardon would be granted and oblivion given for all offenses except those committed by men who had answered nay to the required pledge of compliance. Positive arrangements would be made for adjusting existing tax and registration delinquencies and for resolving existing prosecutions for penalties. The two Pennsylvania state commissioners followed the lead of the federal commissioners, declaring that Pennsylvania, too, would grant a general pardon if assurances to obey state laws were made and kept. No one could deny that the terms being offered to the rebels were generous. Whether they would be accepted was the question.

  11

  “An amicable accommodation [is] so very doubtful.”

  —Henry Knox, September 1794

  IT DID NOT take long for the hope that the rebellion was over to fade. By September 5, notes of despair began to creep into the correspondence of the officials on the scene in western Pennsylvania. General Wilkins now confided to Clement Biddle his certainty that soon “we shall be involved in all the horrors of a civil war.” Only a few days later, Henry Knox told Mifflin that all the intelligence he had received left “an amicable accommodation so very doubtful.”91

  Perhaps just as disturbing, resistance to the revenue laws continued to crop up elsewhere. On September 6, Alexander Hamilton told the governor of Maryland that the president had learned of riots taking place in upper parts of Baltimore County. Washington believed it was necessary for Governor Thomas Sim Lee to act immediately to “check the progress of an evil, which radically threatens the order, peace and tranquility of the Country.” Hamilton added his own advice that “an early display of energy” was essential. It was clear that the secretary of the treasury believed these riots were an outgrowth of the rebellion in Pennsylvania. He was not alone in this conviction. In a letter of September 1 to General John Davidson, Lieutenant John Lynn described the influence of the Pennsylvania insurgents in Maryland. The resistance in his town of Fort Cumberland was not strong enough to accomplish “their infernal designs,” but this did not prevent them from insulting law-abiding citizens or boasting that they would erect a liberty pole. The lo
cal volunteer company, Lynn assured Davidson, stood ready to put a stop to it. Later that month, Colonel Thomas Sprigg reported to Governor Lee that troublemakers in Hagerstown threatened to raise a liberty pole and to steal arms from the local magazine. When Hagerstown militiamen disobeyed the orders of their officers and put up a liberty pole, officials had it removed. The militiamen were unfazed; they put up another pole and threatened reprisals against anyone who disturbed it. Reports like these gave credence to Hamilton’s fears: flagrant disregard for the federal government and its laws was spreading like a cancer over the land.92

  On September 13, the commissioners received the results of the polling in the western counties. The news was not good. From Washington County, the rebel leader David Bradford and twenty-seven other county delegates to the Parkinson’s Ferry congress reported that “we… do find ourselves under great embarrassment to express our sentiments and opinions that we cannot guarantee submission of the people.” They hastened to guarantee, however, that “no opposition shall arise from us, the undersigned.” As leaders of the rebellion, they knew they needed amnesty. They added their strong conviction that a large majority of the inhabitants of the county townships would also comply—but admitted they could not promise it.93