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CHAP. V. County. The malcontents for a considerable time 1792. deterred every person from consenting to permit

an office to be held at his house; and when at length this difficulty was supposed to be overcome, those who had been prevailed on to accede to the propositions of the supervisor in this respect, were compelled by personal violence, and by threats of the destruction of property, and even of death, to retract the consent they had given.

A meeting was again convened at Pittsburg, in which among other very exceptionable resolutions, committees were established to correspond with any committees of a similar nature that might be appointed in other parts of the United States. By this meeting it was declared, that they would persist in every legal measure to obstruct the execution of the law, and would consider those who held offices for the collection of the duty as unworthy of their friendship; that they would have no intercourse or dealings with them; would withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties which, as men and fellow citizens, they owed to each other; and would upon all occasions treat them with contempt. It was at the same time earnestly recommended to the people at large to follow the same line of conduct.

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No man could be more sensible than the president, of the dangerous tendency of these measures, nor more indignant at the outrage thus offered to <the government of the United States. But his -prudence. and his high respect for the laws res. trained him within the narrow limits which the

proclama

legislature had prescribed. A proclamation* was CHAP. V. issued exhorting and admonishing all persons to 1792. desist from any combinations or proceedings President's whatsoever, tending to obstruct the execution of ion. the laws, and requiring the interference of the civil magistrate; and prosecutions against the offenders were directed to be instituted in every case in which they could be supported.

The attorney general inclined to the opinion that the resolutions at Pittsburg did not constitute an indictable offence; and two prosecutions which were instituted against persons supposed to have been concerned in the atrocities committed on the officers and individuals who were aiding in the execution of the laws, were afterwards discontinued, it being discovered that a mistake had been made in the persons on whom the process was served.

This proclamation produced no salutary effect. Many of the civil magistrates were themselves concerned in stimulating the excesses they were required to suppress; and those who had not

In his letter enclosing this proclamation to the secretary of the treasury, the president observed. "I have no doubt but that the proclamation will undergo many strictures; and, as the effect proposed may not be answered by it, it will be necessary to look forward in time to ulterior arrangements. And here, not only the constitution and laws must strictly govern, but the employment of the regular troops avoided, if it be possible to effect order without their aid; yet if no other means will effectually answer, and the constitution and laws will authorize these, they must be used as the dernier resort."

CHAP. V. embarked in the criminal enterprise, found them1792. selves totally unable to maintain the sovereignty of the laws.

With a laudable solicitude to avoid extremities, the government still sought for means to recall these misguided people to a sense of duty, without the employment of a military force. To obtain this desirable object, the following system was digested and pursued.

Prosecutions were instituted against delinquents in those cases in which it was believed that they could be maintained. The spirits distilled in the non-complying counties were intercepted on their way to market, and seized by the officers of the revenue: and the agents for the army were directed to purchase only those spirits on which the duty had been paid. By thus acting on the interests of the distillers, the hope was indulged that they might be induced to comply with the law. Could they have obeyed their wishes, these measures would probably have produced the desired effect; but they were no longer masters of their own conduct. Impelled by a furious multitude, they found it much more dangerous to obey than to resist the laws. The efficacy of this system too was diminished by a circumstance, which induced the necessity of a second application to the legislature. The act had not been extended to the territory northwest of the Ohio, in which great part of the army lay; and the distillers, in a considerable degree, eluded the vigilance of the government by introducing their spirits into that territory.

1792.

While from causes which were incessant and CHAP. V. active in their operation, some of which seem too strongly fixed in the human mind ever to be removed, a broad foundation was thus laid for those party struggles whose fury is generally proportioned to the magnitude of the objects to be attained, and to the means which may be employed in attaining them, the external affairs of the United States sustained no material change.

Of the good understanding which was preserved with France, a fresh proof had been recently given by the employment of Mr. Ternan, a person peculiarly acceptable to the American government, to succeed the count de Moustiers, as minister plenipotentiary of his most christian majesty ; and in turn, Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who was understood to have rendered himself agreeable to the French government, was appointed to represent the United States at the court of Versailles.

In addition to these interchanges of civility, a melancholy occasion had presented itself for giving much more substantial evidence of the alacrity with which the American administration would embrace any proper opportunity of manifesting its disposition to promote the interests of France.

Of that malignant philosophy, which, disregarding the actual state of the world, and estimating at nothing the miseries of a vast portion of the human race, can coolly and deliberately pursue through oceans of blood, abstract systems for the attainment of some fancied untried good, early and bitter fruits were gathered in the French

CHAP. V. West Indies. Instead of proceeding in the cor 1792. rection of any abuses which might exist, by those

and m ssacre

of St.

Domingo.

slow and cautious steps which gradually introduce reform without ruin, which may prepare and fit society for that better state of things designed for them; and which by not attempting impossibilities, may enlarge the circle of happiness, the revolutionists of France formed the mad and wicked project of spreading their doctrines of equality among persons, between whom there exist distinctions and prejudices to be subdued only by the Insurrection grave. The rage excited by the pursuit of this in the island visionary and baneful theory, after many threaten. ing symptoms, burst forth on the 23d day of August 1791, with a fury alike destructive and general. In one night a preconcerted insurrection of the blacks took place throughout the colony of St. Domingo, and the white inhabitants of the country, while sleeping in their beds, were involved in one indiscriminate massacre, from which neither age nor sex could afford an exemp. tion. Only a few females, reserved for a fate more cruel than death, were intentionally spared; and not many were fortunate enough to escape into the fortified cities. The insurgents then assembled in vast numbers, and a bloody war commenced between them and the whites inhabiting the towns. The whole French part of the island was in imminent danger of being totally lost to the mother country. The minister of his most christian majesty applied to the executive of the United States for a sum of money which would enable him to preserve this valuable colony, to be

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