1. In 1791 a direct tax was levied by Act of Congress on all lands and houses; excise officers were to ascertain their value. The "Alien and Sedition Laws" were also passed the same year. The execution of the law relative to the direct tax was resisted in Northampton county, Penn., and some prisoners rescued from an officer of the United States. The President, Mr. Adams, issued his proclamation. In 1799 John Fries was arrested on the charge of treason. The overt act alleged was resistance to that one special law of Congress. Judge Iredell charged the Grand-Jury, "You have heard the government as grossly abused as if it had been guilty of the vilest tyranny." Had he read the private correspondence of the Cabinet, he might have found other specimens of "abuse." He defended both the Alien and Sedition Laws.--They were "constitutional" and "proper."[154] [Footnote 154: See a defence of them in 2 Gibbs's Administration, 74, 78; also 162.] Mr. Fries was indicted for treason. The Judiciary Act of Congress of 1789 provides that "in cases punishable with death the trial shall be had in the county where the offence was committed; or when that cannot be done without great inconvenience, twelve petit jurors at least shall be summoned from thence." The offence was committed in Northampton county, and he was indicted and brought to trial in Philadelphia county, nor could the court be induced to comply with the statute! The government laid down the law and constructed treason with the usual ingenuity of officials working by the job. Judge Kelyng's loose opinion that an attack on a brothel was high treason, was cited by Mr. Rawle, the District Attorney, as good law.[155] What "in England is called constructive levying of war, in this country must be called direct levying of war." Judge Peters charged that though force was necessary to constitute the crime of treason, yet "the quantum of force is immaterial," of course it may be wielding a wheat straw, or a word, I suppose. "The doctrine of constructive treason has produced much real mischief in another country" [England]. "The _greater part of the objections to it are irrelevant here_." [Footnote 155: Wharton, 539; Kelyng, R. 70, 75.] Fries was found guilty. His counsel moved for a new trial, on the ground that before the trial one of the jurors had declared, "Fries ought to be hung;" "I myself shall be in danger unless we hang them all;" that the jurors were irregularly drawn, and the trial was not held in the county where the offence was committed. Judge Iredell ruled that it was "_a high contempt_ at this time _to call for a renewal of an argument whereon a solemn, decisive opinion was delivered_." Judge Peters declared the juror had "said no more than all friends to the laws and the government were warranted in thinking and saying." Yet a new trial was granted.