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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by

JOHN C. HAMILTON,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

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CABINET PAPERS.

SECRETARY OF STATE TO MIFFLIN.

Draft by Hamilton.

PHILADELPHIA, August 7th, 1794.

SIR:

The President of the United States has directed me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant, and to communicate to you the following reply:

In requesting an interview with you on the subject of the recent disturbances in the western parts of Pennsylvania, the President, besides the desire of manifesting a respectful attention to the chief magistrate of a State immediately affected, was influenced by the hopes that a free conference, guided by a united and comprehensive view of the Constitutions of the United States and of Pennsylvania, and of the respective institutions, authori ties, rights, and duties of the two governments, would have assisted him in forming more precise ideas of the nature of the co-operation which could be established between them, and a better judgment of the plan which it might be advisable for him to pursue, in the execution of his trust in so important and delicate a conjuncture. This having been his object, it is matter of some regret, that the course which has been suggested by you, as proper to be pursued, seems to have contemplated Pennsylvania in

a light too separate and unconnected. The propriety of that course, in most, if not in all respects, would be susceptible of little question if there were no federal government, federal laws, federal judiciary, or federal officers; if important laws of the United States, by a series of violent, as well as of artful expedients, had not been frustrated in their execution for more than three years; if officers immediately charged with that execution, after suffering much and repeated insult, abuse, personal ill-treatment, and the destruction of property, had not been compelled for safety to fly the places of their residences, and the scenes of their official duties; if the service of the processes of a court of the United States had not been resisted; the marshal of the district made and detained for some time a prisoner, and compelled for safety also to abandon the performance of his duty, and return by a circuitous route to the seat of government; if, in fine, a judge of the United States had not in due form of law notified to the President, "that in the counties of Washington and Alleghany, in Pennsylvania, laws of the United States are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshal of that district." It is true, your excellency has remarked, that in the plan suggested you have only spoken as the executive magistrate of Pennsylvania, charged with a general superintendence and care, that the laws of the commonwealth be fully executed, leaving it implicitly to the judgment of the President to choose, on such evidence as he approves, the measures for discharging the analogous trust which is confided to him in relation to the laws of the Union. But it is impossible not to think that the current of the observations in your letter, especially as to the consequences which may result from the employment of coercive measures, previous to the preliminary course which is indicated in it, may be construed to imply a virtual disapprobation of that plan of conduct, on the part of the general government, in the actual stage of its affairs, which you acknowledge would be proper on the part of the government of Pennsylvania, if arrived at a similar stage. Let it be assumed here (to be more particularly shown

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hereafter), that the government of the United States is now at that point, where it is admitted, if the government of Pennsyl vania was, the employment of force by its authority would be justifiable; and let the following extracts be consulted for the truth of the inference which has been just expressed. "Will not the resort to force, inflame and cement the existing opposition? Will it not associate in a common resistance those who have hitherto peaceably, as well as those who have riotously, expressed their abhorrence of the excise? Will it not collect and combine every latent principle of discontent, arising from the supposed oppressive operations of the federal judiciary, the obstruction of the western navigation, and a variety of other local sources? May not the magnitude of the opposition on the part of the illdisposed, or the dissatisfaction of a premature resort to arms on the part of the well-disposed citizens of the State, eventually involve the necessity of employing the militia of other States? And the accumulation of discontent which the jealousy engendered by that movement may produce, who can calculate, or who will be able to avert?"

These important questions naturally give birth to the following serious reflections. The issues of human affairs are in the hands of Providence. Those intrusted with them in society, have no other sure guide than the sincere and faithful discharge of their duty, according to the best of their judgments. In emergencies, great and difficult, not to act with an energy proportioned to their magnitude and pressure, is as dangerous as any other conceivable course. In the present case, not to exert the means which the laws prescribe for effectuating their own execution, would be to sacrifice those laws, and with them the Constitution, the Government, the principles of social order, and the bulwarks of private right and security. What worse can happen from the exertion of these means?

If, as cannot be doubted, the great body of the citizens of the United States are attached to the Constitution, which they have established for the management of their common concerns-if they are resolved to support their own authority in that of the constitutional laws, against disorderly and violent combinations

of comparatively small portions of the community-if they are determined to protect each other in the enjoyment of security to person and property-if they are decided to preserve the character of republican government, by evincing that it has adequate resources for maintaining the public order—if they are persuaded that their safety and their welfare are materially connected with the preservation of the Union, and consequently of a government adequate to its exigencies; in fine, if they are disposed to continue that state of respectability and prosperity which is now deservedly the admiration of mankind-the enterprise to be accomplished, should a resort to force prove inevitable, though disagreeable and painful, cannot be arduous or alarming.

If, in addition to these dispositions in the community at large, the officers of the governments of the respective States, feeling it to be not only a patriotic but a constitutional duty (inculcated by the oath enjoined upon all the officers of a State, legislative, executive, and judicial), to support in their several stations the Constitution of the United States, shall be disposed, as occasion may require (a thing as little to be doubted as the former), with sincerity and good faith to co-operate with the government of the United States, to second with all their influence and weight its legal and necessary measures, by a legal and substantial concert, then the enterprise to be accomplished can hardly even be deemed difficult.

or,

But if, contrary to the anticipations which are entertained of these favorable dispositions, the great body of the people should be found indifferent to the preservation of the government of the Union, or insensible to the necessity of vigorous exertions to repel the danger which threatens their most important interests, if an unwillingness to encounter partial inconveniences, should interfere with the discharge of what they owe to their permanent welfare; or if, either yielding to the suggestions of particular prejudices, or misled by the arts which may be employed to infuse jealousy and discontent, they should suffer their zeal for the support of public order to be relaxed by an unfavorable opinion of the merits and tendency of the measures which may be adopted; if above all it were possible that any of the State gov

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