ernments should, instead of prompting the exertions of the citizens, assist directly or indirectly in damping their ardor by giving a wrong bias to their judgment—or by disseminating dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the general government-or should counteract the success of those proceedings by any sinister influence whatever then, indeed, no one can calculate, or may be able to avert the fatal evils with which such a state of things would be pregnant. Then, indeed, the foundations of our political happiness may be deeply shaken, if not altogether overturned.

The President, however, can suppose none of these things. He cherishes an unqualified confidence in the virtue and good sense of the people, in the integrity and patriotism of the officers of the State governments, and he counts absolutely on the same affectionate support, which he has experienced upon all former occasions, and which he is conscious that the goodness of his intentions now, not less than heretofore, merits.

It has been promised to show more particularly hereafter, that the government of the United States is now at that point where, it is confessed, if the State government was, the employment of force on its part would be justifiable. This promise remains to be fulfilled.

The facts already noted establish the conclusion; but to ren der it palpable, it will be of use to apply them to the positions which your excellency has been pleased to lay down.

You admit, that as the offences committed respect the State, the military power of the government ought to be employed, when its judiciary authority, after a fair experiment, had proved incompetent to enforce obedience or to punish infractions of the law; that if the strength and audacity of a lawless combination shall baffle and destroy the efforts of the judiciary authority, to recover a penalty or inflict a punishment, that authority may constitutionally claim the auxiliary intervention of the military power-that in the last resort, at the requisition and as an auxiliary of the civil authority, the military force of the State would be called forth. And you declare that the circumstances of the case evidently require a firm and energetic conduct on the part, both of the State and General Government.

For more than three years, as already observed, certain laws of the United States have been obstructed in their execution by disorderly combinations. Not only officers, whose immediate duty it was to carry them into effect, have suffered violent personal outrage and injury, and destruction of property, at different times, but similar persecution has been extended to private citizens, who have aided, countenanced, or only complied with the laws. The violences committed have been so frequent, and such in their degree as to have been matters of general notoriety and alarm-and it may be added that they have been abundantly within the knowledge and under the notice of the judges and magistrates of Pennsylvania, of superior as well as inferior jurisdiction. If in particular instances they have been punished by the exertions of the magistrates, it is at least certain that their efforts have been in the main ineffectual. The spirit has continued, and, with some intervals of relaxation, has been progressive, manifesting itself in reiterated excesses. The judiciary authority of the United States has also, prior to the attempt which preceded the late crisis, made some fruitless efforts. Under a former marshal, an officer sent to execute process was deterred from it by the manifest danger of proceeding. These particulars serve to explain the extent, obstinacy and inveteracy of the evil.

But the facts which immediately decide the complexion of the existing crisis are these: Numerous delinquencies existed with regard to a compliance with the laws laying duties on spirits distilled within the United States and upon stills. An armed banditti, in disguise, had recently gone to the house of an officer of the revenue, in the night, attacked it, broken open the doors, and, by menaces of instant death, enforced by pistols presented at him, had compelled a surrender of his commission and books of office. Cotemporary acts of violence had been perpetrated in other quarters. Processes issued out of a court of the United States, to recover the penalties incident to a non-compliance with the laws, and to bring to punishment the violent infractors of them, in the above mentioned case, against two of whom indictments had been found. The marshal of the dis

trict went in person to execute these processes. In the course of his duty he was actually fired upon, on the high road, by a body of armed men. Shortly after, other bodies of armed men (in the last instance amounting to several hundred persons) repeatedly attacked the house of the inspector of the revenue, with the declared intention of compelling him to renounce his office, and of obstructing the execution of the laws. One of these bodies of armed men made prisoner the marshal of the district, put him in jeopardy of his life, and did not release him till, for safety and to obtain his liberty, he engaged to forbear the further execution of the processes with which he was charged. In consequence of further requisitions and menaces of the insurgents, the marshal, together with the inspector of the revenue, have been since under the necessity of flying, secretly and by a circuitous route, from the scene of these transactions, towards the seat of government. An associate justice, pursuant to the provisions of the laws for that purpose, has, in the manner already stated, officially notified the President of the existence of combinations, in two of the counties of this State, to obstruct the execution of the laws, too powerful to be suppressed by the judiciary authority, or by the powers of the marshal.

Thus, then, is it unequivocally and in due form ascertained, in reference to the government of the United States, that the judiciary authority, after a fair and full experiment, has proved incompetent to enforce obedience to, or to punish infractions of, the laws; that the strength and audacity of certain lawless combinations have baffled and destroyed the efforts of the judiciary authority to recover penalties or inflict punishment; and that this authority, by a regular notification of this state of things, has, in the last resort, as an auxiliary of the civil authority, claimed the intervention of the military power of the United States. It results, from these facts, that the case exists whenaccording to the positions advanced by your excellency, in reference to the State government-when the military power may, with due regard to all the requisite cautions, be rightfully interposed; and that the interposition of this power is called for, not

only by principles of a firm and energetic conduct on the part of the general government, but by the indispensable duty which the Constitution and the laws prescribe to the Executive of the United States. In this conclusion, your excellency's discernment, on mature reflection, cannot, it is presumed, fail to acquiesce; nor can it refuse its concurrence in the opinion which the President entertains, that he may reasonably expect, when called for, the zealous co-operation of the militia of Pennsylvania; that as citizens, friends to law and order, they may comply with the call, without any thing that can properly be denominated "a passive obedience to the mandates of government;" and that, as freemen, judging rightly of the cause and nature of the service proposed to them, they will feel themselves under the most sacred of obligations to accept and to perform it with alacrity. The theory of our political institutions knows no difference between the obligations of our citizens, in such a case, whether it relate to the government of this Union or of a State; and it is hoped and confided, that a difference will be as little known to their affections or opinions.

Your excellency, it is also presumed, will as little doubt, on the like mature reflection, that in such a case the President could not, without an abdication of the undoubted rights and authorities of the United States, and of his duty, postpone the measures for which the laws of the United States provide, to a previous experiment of the plan, which is delineated in your letter.

The people of the United States have established a government for the management of their general interests; they have instituted executive organs for administering that government; and their representatives have established the rules by which these organs are to act. When their authority in that of their government is attacked, by lawless combinations of the citizens of part of a State, they could never be expected to approve that the care of vindicating their authority, of enforcing their laws, should be transferred from the officers of their own government to those of a State, and this to wait the issue of a process so undeterminate in its duration as that which it is proposed to pur

sue; comprehending a further and full experiment of the judiciary authority of the State, a proclamation "to declare the sentiments of its government, announce a determination to prosecute and punish offenders, and to exhort the citizens at large to pursue a peaceable and patriotic conduct;" the sending of commissioners "to address those who have embarked in the present combinations upon the lawless nature and ruinous tendency of their proceedings; to inculcate the necessity of an immediate return to the duty which they owe their country; and to promise, as far as the State is concerned, forgiveness of their past transactions, upon receiving a satisfactory assurance that, in future, they will submit to the laws;" and, finally, a call of the legislature of Pennsylvania, "that the ultimate means of subduing the spirit of insurrection, and of restoring tranquillity and order, may be prescribed by their wisdom and authority."

If there were no other objection to a transfer of this kind, the very important difference which is supposed to exist in the nature and consequences of the offences that have been committed, in the contemplation of the laws of the United States and those of Pennsylvania, would alone be a very serious obstacle. The paramount considerations which forbid an acquiescence in this course of proceeding, render it unnecessary to discuss the probability of its success; else it might have been proper to test the considerations which have been mentioned as a ground of hope, by the inquiry, what was the precise extent of the success of past experiments, and especially whether the execution of the revenue laws of Pennsylvania within the scene in question was truly and effectually accomplished by them, or whether they did not rather terminate in a tacit compromise, by which appearances only were saved?

You are already, sir, advised that the President, yielding to the impressions which have been stated, has determined to take measures for calling forth the militia; and that these measures contemplate the assembling of a body of between twelve and thirteen thousand men, from Pennsylvania and the neighboring States of Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. The recourse thus early to the militia of the neighboring States, prevails from a probability