To these resolutions Mr. Gallatin's name is appended as clerk of the
meeting. It is needless to say that he considered them unwise, and that
they were adopted against his judgment; but he did not attempt to throw
off his responsibility for them on that score. In his speech on the
insurrection, delivered in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in
January, 1795, he took quite a different ground. "I was," said he, "one
of the persons who composed the Pittsburg meeting, and I gave my assent
to the resolutions. It might perhaps be said that the principle of those
resolutions was not new, as it was at least partially adopted on a
former period by a respectable society in this city,--a society that was
established during the late war in order to obtain a change of the
former constitution of Pennsylvania, and whose members, if I am
accurately informed, agreed to accept no offices under the then existing
government, and to dissuade others from accepting them. I might say that
those resolutions did not originate at Pittsburg, 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," that is to say, on the individuals who composed
the meeting, not on the people at large.
Who, then, was the person who introduced these violent resolutions? This
is nowhere told, either by Gallatin, Findley, or Brackenridge in their
several accounts of the troubles. Perhaps a guess may be hazarded that
David Bradford had something to do with them. Bradford was a lawyer
with political aspirations, and had seized on the excise agitation as a
means of riding into power; as will be seen, he was jealous of
Gallatin,--a jealousy requited by contempt. He was this year returned by
Washington County as a member of the House of Representatives of the
State, and went up to Philadelphia with other delegates.
GALLATIN TO THOMAS CLARE.
PHILADELPHIA, December 18, 1792.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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