Mr. Gallatin's speech met the assumption that resistance to the excise was legal by a contrary assumption, without argument, that it was illegal, and thus threatened to force a discussion of the point of which both sides were afraid. Mr. Gallatin himself believed that the resolutions would then have been adopted if put to a vote; the majority, even if disposed to peace, had not the courage to act. Now was the time for Brackenridge to have thrown off his elaborate web of double-dealing and with his utmost strength to have supported Gallatin's lead; but Brackenridge's nerves failed him. "I respected the courage of the secretary in meeting the resolution," he says,[19] "but I was alarmed at the idea of any discussion of the principle." "I affected to oppose the secretary, and thought it might not be amiss to have the resolution, though softened in terms." Nevertheless, the essential point was carried; Marshall withdrew the resolution, and a compromise was made by referring everything to a committee of sixty, with power to call a new meeting of the people. The third and fourth resolutions required no special opposition. The fifth pledged the people to the support of the laws, except the excise law and the taking citizens out of their counties for trial. Gallatin attacked this exception, and succeeded in having it expunged. A debate then followed on the adoption of the amended resolution, which was supported by both Brackenridge and Gallatin, and an incident said to have occurred in the course of the latter's speech is thus related by Mr. Brackenridge:[20] "Mr. Gallatin supported the necessity of the resolution, with a view to the establishment of the laws and the conservation of the peace. Though he did not venture to touch on the resistance to the marshal or the expulsion of the proscribed, yet he strongly arraigned the destruction of property; the burning of the barn of Kirkpatrick, for instance. 'What!' said a fiery fellow in the committee, 'do you blame that?' The secretary found himself embarrassed; he paused for a moment. 'If you had burned him in it,' said he, 'it might have been something; but the barn had done no harm.' 'Ay, ay,' said the man, 'that is right enough.' I admired the presence of mind of Gallatin, and give the incident as a proof of the delicacy necessary to manage the people on that occasion." Opposite this passage on the margin of the page, in Mr. Gallatin's copy of this book, is written in pencil the following note, in his hand: "Totally false. It is what B. would have said in my place. The fellow said, 'It was well done.' I replied instantly, 'No; it was not well done,' and I continued to deprecate in the most forcible terms every act of violence. For I had quoted the burning of this house as one of the worst."