From the standpoint of the Union it was also fortunate that a military man was President. Those who criticised the choice for the Presidency of a man with military experience but no civic training, and those who deplore a custom so frequently repeated since, may find here some benefits arising from having a man with such an education. "I have no hesitation in declaring," replied Washington to Secretary Hamilton, when notified of the resistance manifested in western Pennsylvania to the revenue officers, "that I shall, however reluctantly exercising them, exert all the legal powers with which the executive is invested to check so daring and unwarrantable a spirit. It is my duty to see the laws executed." Very carefully the soldier-President felt his way through his civic powers of coercion before using his military authority in this first of several cases of preserving the Union against insurrection. There was absolutely no precedent for the coercion of citizens by the National Government. The Federal courts had not yet come into conflict with any considerable number of citizens of a State. But they extended as a judicial network over the whole national domain. They covered every inhabitant. To them Washington turned first. Although Attorney-General Knox decided that the insurgent meetings were not illegal, several rioters were fined by the United States Circuit Court, special sessions of which were held in Pennsylvania. The President showed his appreciation of the delicate adjustment between State and national authority by consulting the Governor of Pennsylvania at every step. If the State at this formative hour had possessed an executive confident in himself and in his ability to suppress the disorder, he might have done a lasting service to the preservation of the supremacy of the States and forestalled the prestige which the Central Government was bound to obtain from its leadership in this crisis. But Governor Mifflin was content to support the national authority, claiming that the militia of his State was inadequate to the emergency.