Albert Gallatin
young, some hale, respectable looking men; others were pale,
meagre, and shabbily dressed. Some had great coats,--others had
blankets on their shoulders. The countenance of some was downcast,
melancholy, dejected; that of others, stern, indignant, manifesting
that they thought themselves undeserving such treatment. Two
Philadelphia horsemen rode in front and then two prisoners, and two
horsemen and two prisoners, actually throughout a line extending
perhaps half a mile.... If these men had been the ones chiefly
guilty of the disturbance, it would have been no more than they
deserved. But the guilty had signed the amnesty, or had left the
county before the army approached."
Dallas, the secretary of state, Gallatin's friend, was one of this
troop. Gallatin saw him soon after his return. In a letter to his wife
of December 3, Gallatin relates the experience of the trooper who had
little stomach for the work he had to do.
"I saw Dallas yesterday. Poor fellow had a most disagreeable
campaign of it. He says the spirits, I call it the madness, of the
Philadelphia Gentlemen's Corps was beyond conception before the
arrival of the President. He saw a list (handed about through the
army by officers, nay, by a general officer) of the names of those
persons who were to be destroyed at all events, and you may easily
guess my own was one of the most conspicuous. Being one day at
table with sundry officers, and having expressed his opinion that,
if the army were going only to support the civil authority, and not
to do any military execution, one of them (Dallas did not tell me
his name, but I am told it was one Ross of Lancaster, aide-de-camp
to Mifflin) half drew a dagger he wore instead of a sword, and
swore any man who uttered such sentiments ought to be dagged. The
President, however, on his arrival, and afterwards Hamilton, took
uncommon pains to change the sentiments, and at last it became
fashionable to adopt, or at least to express, sentiments similar to
those inculcated by them."
Randolph was, perhaps, not far out of the way in his fear of a civil war
should blood be drawn, and in his conviction that the influence of
Washington was the only sedative for the fevered political pulse. On
November 17 general orders were issued for the return of the army, a
detachment of twenty-five hundred men only remaining in the West, under
command of General Morgan. There were no further disturbances. The army
expenses gave a circulating medium, and the farmers, having now the
means to pay their taxes, made no further complaints of the excise law.
The total expense of the insurrection to the government was $800,000.
Mr. Gallatin returned with his wife from his western home early in
November. He had been again chosen at the October elections to represent
Fayette in the Pennsylvania Assembly. Moreover, at the same time, he was
elected to represent the congressional district of Washington and
Allegheny in the House of Representatives of the United States. Of four
candidates Gallatin led the poll. Judge Brackenridge was next in order.
No better proof is needed of the firm hold Gallatin had in the esteem
and affection of the people. No doubt, either, that they understood his
principles, and relied upon his sincere attachment to the country he had
made his home.
When he appeared to take his seat in the Assembly he found that his
election was contested. A petition was presented from thirty-four
persons calling themselves peaceable citizens of Washington County,
which stated that their votes had not been cast, because of the
disturbed condition of the country, and requested the Assembly to
declare the district to have been in a state of insurrection at the time
of the election, and to vacate the same. Mr. Gallatin knew the person
who procured the signatures, and also that the business originated in
the army. It was couched in terms insulting to all the members elect
from that district. After a protracted debate the election was declared
void on January 9, 1795. It was during this debate that Mr. Gallatin
made the celebrated speech called "The speech on the western elections,"
in which occurs the confession already alluded to. Speaking of the
Pittsburgh resolutions of 1792, he said:--
"I might say that those resolutions did not originate at
Pittsburgh, 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 contemptible, they tended
to diminish that respect for the execution of the laws which is
essential to the maintenance of a free government; 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."
This was the first speech of Gallatin that appeared in print--simple,
lucid, convincing. The result of the new Assembly election would
naturally determine the right of the representatives of the contested
district to their seats in Congress. Word had gone forth from the
Treasury Department that Gallatin must not take his seat in Congress,
and the whippers-in took heed of the desire of their chief. A line of
instruction to Badollet, who lived at Greensburg in Washington County,
across the river from Gallatin's residence, determined the matter.
Gallatin warned him against the attempt that would be made to disaffect
that district because none of the representatives whose seats had been
vacated were residents of it. "Fall not into the snare," he wrote; "take
up nobody from your own district; reelect unanimously the same members,
whether they be your favorites or not. It is necessary for the sake of
our general character." Here is an instance of that true political
instinct which made of him "the ideal party leader." His advice was
followed, and all the members were reelected but one, who declined. Mr.
Gallatin returned to his seat in the Assembly on February 14, and
retained it until March 12, when he asked and obtained leave of absence.
He does not appear to have taken further part in the session. The
subjects, personal to himself, which occupied his attention during the
summer will be touched upon elsewhere.
The pitiful business of the trial of the western prisoners needs only
brief mention. In May Gallatin was summoned before the grand jury as a
witness on the part of the government. The inquiry was finished May 12,
and twenty-two bills were found for treason. Against Fayette two bills
were found; one for misdemeanor in raising the liberty pole in
Uniontown. The petit jury was composed of twelve men from each of the
counties of Fayette, Washington, Allegheny, and Northumberland, but none
from Westmoreland. One man, a German from Westmoreland, who was
concerned in a riot in Fayette, was found guilty and condemned to death.
Mr. Gallatin, at the request of the jury, drew a petition to the
President, who granted a pardon. Washington extended mercy to the only
other offender who incurred the same penalty.
To the close of this national episode, which, in its various phases of
incident and character, is of dramatic interest, Gallatin, through good
repute and ill repute, stood manfully by his constituents and friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Hamilton's _History of the Republic_, vi. 96.]
CHAPTER V
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
The first session of the fourth Congress began at Philadelphia on
Monday, December 7, 1795. Washington was president, John Adams
vice-president. No one of Washington's original constitutional advisers
remained in his cabinet. Jefferson retired from the State Department at
the beginning of the first session of the third Congress. Edmund
Randolph, appointed in his place, resigned in a cloud of obloquy on
August 19, 1795, and the portfolio was temporarily in charge of Timothy
Pickering, secretary of war. Hamilton resigned the department of the
Treasury on January 31, 1795, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., succeeded him in
that most important of the early offices of the government. General
Henry Knox, the first secretary of war, pressed by his own private
affairs and the interests of a large family, withdrew on December 28,
1794, and Timothy Pickering, the postmaster-general, had been appointed
in his stead January 2, 1795. The Navy Department was not as yet
established (the act creating it was passed April 30, 1798), but the
affairs which concerned this branch of the public service were under
the direction of the secretary of war. The administration of Washington
was drawing to a close. In the lately reconstructed cabinet, honest,
patriotic, and thorough in administration, there was no man of shining
mark. The Senate was still in the hands of the Federal party. The bare
majority which rejected Gallatin in the previous Congress had increased
to a sufficient strength for party purposes, but neither in the ranks of
the administration nor the opposition was there in this august
assemblage one commanding figure.
The House was nearly equally divided. The post of speaker was warmly
contested. Frederick A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who had presided
over the House at the sessions of the first Congress, 1789-1791, and
again over the third, 1793-1795, was the candidate of the Federalists,
but was defeated by Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, whose views in the
last session had drifted him into sympathy with the Republican
opposition. The House, when full, numbered one hundred and five members,
among whom were the ablest men in the country, veterans of debate versed
in parliamentary law and skilled in the niceties of party fence. In the
Federal ranks, active, conscious of their power, and proud of the great
party which gloried in Washington as their chief, were Robert Goodloe
Harper of South Carolina, Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Roger
Griswold and Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, who led the front and held the
wings of debate; while in reserve, broken in health but still in the
prime of life, the pride of his party and of the House, was Fisher Ames,
the orator of his day, whose magic tones held friend and foe in rapt
attention, while he mastered the reason or touched the heart. Upon these
men the Federal party relied for the vindication of their principles and
the maintenance of their power. Supporting them were William Vans Murray
of Maryland, Goodrich and Hillhouse of Connecticut, William Smith of
South Carolina, Sitgreaves of Pennsylvania, and in the ranks a
well-trained party. Opposed to this formidable array of Federal talent
was the Republican party, young, vigorous, and in majority, bold in
their ideas but as yet hesitating in purpose under the controlling if
not overruling influence of the name and popularity of Washington.
Hamilton watched the shifting fortunes of his party from a distance, and
found time in the pressure of a large legal practice to aid each branch
of administration in turn with his advice. But though he still inspired
its councils, he no longer directed its course. In his Monticello home
Jefferson waited till the fruit was ripe for falling, occasionally
impatient that his followers did not more roughly shake the tree.
The open rupture of Jefferson with Hamilton was the first great break in
the Federal administration; the lukewarmness of Madison, whose leanings