USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > History of Washington County : from its first settlement to the present time, first under Virginia as Yohogania, Ohio, or Augusta County until 1781, and subsequently under Pennsylvania > Part 55
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All governments are liable to change, all have had their changes, for no human art or invention is perpetual. The freedom of the savage state is by degrees restrained by the rules which are necessary to preserve one man from the force or fraud of another. As wickedness becomes ingenious or daring restraints are multiplied, or in other words, the powers of government are enlarged. Every new act of violence in the people becomes an argu- ment for a new accession of force to the government, till arbitrary power is gradually invested in one man, as the only remedy for preserving every man from the injustice of every other. Such has been the progress of govern- ments, and such by the violence of passion may be the progress of ours.
We profess to admire liberty and to respect the principles of a demon- strative republic as the best source of government, and we consider our own government as founded on those principles. Will we be honest in our profession and act on the principles which we admire ? The principles of a democracy are that the whole people, either personally or by their represen- tatives, should have the power of making laws. But what law is it in which the whole people would concur ? So various are the faculties and interests of men, that unanimity of many in any measure is seldom to be expected of a whole people, almost never. If no law were to be made, therefore, till the whole people should assent to it, no law would almost ever be made. But as laws must be made, there is a necessity that the will of some of the people should be constrained, and reason requires that the greater number should bind the less. In our government, therefore, the will of the majority is equivalent to the will of the whole, and as such must be obeyed, unless we will avow that we mean to change or destroy the principles of our govern- ment by violence and terror, and abandoning reason, the principle of action in man, degrade ourselves to the rank of brutes.
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To permit or assume a power in any particular part of a State, to defeat or evade a law, is to establish a principle that every part of a State may make laws for itself, or in other words, that there shall be no law, no State, and no duty, but a complication of separate societies, acting each according to its pleasure. These societies will again be subdivided, for a majority of the whole of any society will have no authority to control any one refractory member. Each man in the State will be free from all law but his own will. Government and society are then destroyed, anarchy is established, and the wicked and the strong, like savages and wild beasts, prey on the whole and on one another.
Such are the natural and necessary consequences of opposing a law by force. This opposition persisted in, must terminate, either in anarchy, in the people, or tyranny in the government, and in either case must terminate in the destruction of those republican principles which we profess to admire and are bound to support. If the government yield, one example of suc- cessful violence will excite some other part of the people, for some other cause, to pursue the same unwarrantable means for the attainment of a favorite object. Every law will be opposed in some quarter by interested men. Indulgence to some will necessarily beget indulgence to all. There will be no law, the wicked will have no restraint, happiness will no longer exist ; mutual jealousy, distrust, and terror will pervade all; thefts, robberies, and murders will spread over the country, and every man will be the enemy of every other. If the government exert its force, the resistance which it will experience, and the difficulty with which it will overcome it, will convince the whole people or the well-disposed, and the greater number, that there is a necessity of abridging the privileges of the citizens and arming the government with greater power. To repress improper violence in the peo- ple, powers, otherwise unnecessary, will be given to the government, and those powers will be increased by every new occasion of violence till a ty- ranny is established. And this is the most probable result of tumults, riots, and insurrections. For all good men are instantly impressed with indigna- tion and resentment against them, and disposed to lend their aid to govern- ment to punish and restrain them. And in the choice of anarchy to tyranny the last as the least evil will be preferred.
I hold, therefore, that a forcible opposition to law, instead of favoring liberty, is the surest way to destroy it. Is then forcible resistance to law never justifiable? Never, if the law be consistent with the constitution. If a law be not contradictory to the principles of the constitution, however erroneous these principles be, it is entitled to obedience. If a law be bad, let those who dislike it apply, by petition to the legislature, for its repeal. If the legislature refuse, let the petitioners change their representatives. If a law be repugnant to the constitution, the constitution, being the paramount authority, silences the law and makes it void. To an unconstitutional law, therefore, forcible resistance may be justifiable, but even in this case it is not prudent, but highly dangerous, because the resister makes it at his peril, and has no other rule but his own opinion, which may be erroneous. For individuals to exercise the right of determining that a law is uneonstitu- tional is dangerous to themselves and to the peace of the State. And even the exercise of this right by the judiciary (to whom it certainly belongs) may sometimes be insidious and occasion jealousies and resentments between them and the legislature. In the case of an unconstitutional law, an appeal to the judiciary ought not to be made without necessity, and to individual force never, till all other remedies are exhausted. Thus, according to the genius of our government, opposition even to an unconstitutional law ought to begin, as opposition to a bad law, by petition to the legislature for its
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repeal, or by a change of representatives. If those measures fail, the validity of the law must be questioned and established or annulled in a court of justice. In this manner it becomes us, as friends to liberty, to seek for every amendment either of a law or of the constitution, in a peaceable manner; for to attempt it by foree implies an apprehension that the altera- tion attempted will not bear the test of reason, nor receive the approbation of a majority. If either the law or the constitution displease a majority, the majority can alter either. If either the law or the constitution displease a minority, the minority must submit, or retire from the territory of the State. These are the principles of democratic republics. By these princi- ples, if we examine our resistance to the excise law, we shall find it as unjustifiable in its nature as it is outrageous in its degree. A power to lay and collect excises was explicitly vested in Congress by the constitution of the United States. This power received a very full discussion and delibe- rate sanction from all the States in their conventions. And four of the States (Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and New York) to the ratification of the constitution, annexed declarations of their opinions that Congress should not impose direet taxes, unless the amount of the im- posts and excises should be insufficient for the public exigencies. Accord- ing to the opinions of those States, therefore, Congress instead of being censurable for not preferring a direct tax to an excise, would have been censurable if they had not imposed a direct tax till the last extremity.
All our benefits are mingled with some degree of inconvenience. The union of the States under a general government, which, by combining the whole strength, renders the States respectable and prosperous, may be truly considered as essential to our safety and happiness, and as one of the greatest political benefits which we can possess. But it is necessarily attended with this inconvenience, that the laws, which from their nature must be general, will often be less adapted to the circumstances of some States than of others. The suffering States must seek consolation under this evil from the principles of mutual concession, and remedy for it from time, experience, and reciprocal inequality of taxation. If this tax bear peculiarly hard on this country, there may be other taxes which bear peculiarly hard on other parts of the United States, and affect us but little. I know not whether I ought to reckon of this number the taxation on property sold at auction; the tax on the manufacture of snuff and refined sugar, or the tax on liceuses for selling wine or foreign fruits by retail; but of this number I surely may reckon, so far as it goes, the tax on carriages for the conveyance of persons. If all these taxes do not, the last certainly does affeet others chiefly and us but little; the last, I may rather say, affects us not at all. They were all imposed in the last session of Congress, and if the progress be persisted in, all may correct the inequality of each, or the inte- rests of all combining, for mutual protection, and instrueted by observation and experience, may in time produce the repeal of all, if a new system more acceptable in its nature and more easy in practice can be introduced. In the mean time, while we murmur at the inconvenience of any law, let us seriously reflect on the difficulty of making laws equal and acceptable to so extended and varying a territory as that of the United States. And considering the fraternal band which ties us together and the source of our laws, from the appointment of the whole people, ought we rashly to abandon a confidence, that as soon as a law is plainly proved by experience to be oppressive to us, our brethren will relieve us ? Would not we do so to others? And have others less virtue than we ?
Together with these general principles, the particular circumstances of this country press upon us a faithful submission to this law as a point of
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conscience, honor, and safety. If we do not yield, an armed force will compel a punctual obedience. The law will be executed, and let us not render it impossible for government to execute it by proper persons. As a public office becomes necessary for our honor and safety, let us render its . execution respectable and encourage and protect honest and respectable men in it. We may thus in some degree lessen the burden of the law, and render our obedience more pleasant to ourselves.
God forbid that any man among us should entertain the horrid idea that secret association should accomplish the work which it is found no longer safe for open insurrection to attempt. When danger to its very existence has once roused the power of government, no art of machination, nothing but implicit submission, can restore safety to the aggressor. Even for our own security from each other, such an idea is one of the most dreadful that can be conceived. Vices the most daring and destable need only a plausi- ble introduction to render them familiar and general. One instance of assas- sination of the most odious person among us, would render the life of the most respectable altogether unsafe. For assassination is the work of a ruffian, and is there any person whom a ruffian will respect ? Cast a mo- ment's reflection on our late troubles, and tell me what kind of villany there is which all at once did not become fashionable. Chopping off heads was spoken of as easily as slicing a cucumber, and burning houses became as trivial as tearing waste paper. Introduce assassination or any other species of crime under a plausible pretence, and it will soon spread over the coun- try and extend to every object.
The late troubles exhibit an awful lesson which it would be inexcusable to pass over without attention and improvement. During their existence the passions were too much excited and the mind too little at leisure to examine thoroughly their nature or effects, and terror debarred the exercise of free- dom of opinion and expression. But now when the storm is over, it becomes our duty to look back on the past scenes to contemplate the ruins it made and speaking of the leading transactions freely and without disguise, to bestow some serious reflections on their nature and tendency. These reflec- tions, while they afford us an opportunity of remarking how fatal to happi- ness is a resistance to lawful authority, will show us also how opposite to liberty anarchy is.
Some of the plainest dictates of personal liberty, if not its most essential principles, are that every man be free to think, to speak, and to act, as his inclination and judgment may lead him, provided he offend not against any law; that no man shall be tried or punished according to the arbitrary will of any individual, but according to the established forms and rules of the law, and that the enjoyment of every man's property shall be secured to him until he forfeit it by the sentence of the law, and that sentence be exe- cuted by the proper officer. With these maxims compare the effects of anarchy as we have experienced it. Because the interest or inclination of some men led them to accept and execute certain offices established by public authority, lawless bodies of men assembled for the purpose of riot and violence, seized, insulted, and abused their persons, entered their houses by force and destroyed both their houses and property by fire. If anything can place such transactions in a more detestable light than at first sight they must appear, it may be this, that if these things may be done for any cause, however good, there need no more for their execution for every cause, than that the party to execute them be of opinion that the cause is good. Let but a mob assemble, however small it be, if sufficient to accomplish its purpose, let them agree in opinion that such a man is dangerous, and there- fore, that his property ought to be destroyed, and it is instantly done. Let
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but one man hate another and resolve to destroy him, he has only to assem- ble a few of similar sentiments, or over whom he has influence ; they instantly pretend to be the people, and the work of malice is accomplished under the semblance of zeal for the public good.
The outrages of anarchy were not confined to public officers. They ex- tended also to private citizens of respectable character and inoffensive manners. Variety of opinion seems to be as natural to the human mind as variety in shape, features, and complexion, is to the human body. Both seem to be the work of our Creator ; neither can be a proper cause of pun- ishment, and to punish for either is the grossest tyranny. Actions which some may think meritorious, others may think detestable, and a law which some may think bad, others may think good. But surely no man of sense and virtue will think that any man ought to be punished for entertaining or expressing either of these opinions, or for acting as if he thought a law good. Yet for such causes were men, who had offended against no law, severed from all the attachments of domestic life, driven from their families and homes, it might have been to wander they knew not where, and to sub- sist they knew not how, under the fear and peril of death if they should return. Is this liberty? Such is the liberty of anarchy.
To a private letter, a sacred respect, somewhat resembling the ancient mysteries of religion, has been usually annexed, and to violate its secrecy requires the suspicion of a coward and the villany of a traitor. Yet for no object that I can perceive of any public nature, but only to gratify the little revenge of a malignant mind, or to show that there was no crime which we were not ready to perpetrate, the public post was robbed and the letters in the mail were opened by a set of self-created inquisitors, who, advancing from one degree of guilt to a greater, assumed the authority of government, and called out the militia of the country to share and cover their crimes.
These transactions furnish us with this melancholy instruction, that when men have once transgressed the bounds of civil obligation and violated public authority, there is afterwards no restraint to their excess. They will do deeds which they never before intended, and from which, had they been suggested, they would have shrunk back with horror, and they will do them from no motive and to no end of interest to themselves or others, but merely from the rashness of the moment, a sally of wantonness, or an impulse of malice. Let us learn, therefore, to confine our conduet within the strict line of duty, and remember that the first transgression renders easy every subsequent one, however enormous.
I will state one or two causes, founded in ignorance and error, which contributed to the late unhappy insurrection or facilitated its progress.
I shall mention, first, an opinion that riots and terror, banishing the officers of excise, would produce a repeal of the excise law, or its inactivity with regard to us; but I have said so much on this, on other occasions, that I shall but maintain it now, and pass it by without further notice. I shall next mention a desire to cover the guilt of those who first attacked Gen. Neville's house, As it seems an opinion generally prevailed that riots in this cause were proper, it appeared hard that those who engaged in them should suffer for their services in the public cause, and it seems to have been believed that the best way to protect them was by multiplying the number of offenders to make the punishment of any appear dangerous. Perhaps here one might find matter for questioning whether it be not desirable that wickedness should be accompanied with understanding, and whether folly be not the most mischievous of all qualities. Had the men who incited the second attack on Gen. Neville's house, and the subsequent transactions in the insurrection, been men of sound well-informed judgment,
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they would have reasoned in this manner : "The rioters have erred, but we have countenanced and shared the opinion from which their error proceeded, and we ought to endeavor to save them. Let the whole county now rise and seize and secure them for public justice. When this is done, let us go forward to government, with solemn and sincere assurances that we will submit to this law honestly and punctually, and that if required, we will pay for all past damages and delinquencies, and with these assurances, let us request that government forgive our offending brethren." If measures of this nature had been pursued, the issue would have been more fortunate to the offenders, to these counties and to the United States.
Another cause which I shall mention is a mistaken use of the word PEO- PLE. As, in a democracy, the people is the source of all authority, and as the people on this side of the mountains seemed all to agree in reprobating the excise law, declaimers never extending their views beyond their own neighborhood, but considering the people here as the whole people, took occasion to represent that the people here might lawfully correct any errors of their public servants. On these principles every neighborhood, consider- ing itself as the people, thought it had a right to do as it pleased. Assum- ing as what needs no proof, that the union of all the States is necessary for the prosperity of each, and that separate from the union we should be insignificant and dependent; I would observe that it is the whole people of the union that is the source of all power, to argue that a very small portion of the people is the source of all power is absurd. If every small portion of the people were to assume the power of the whole, instead of a govern- ment, we should have a chaos of jarring authorities and conflicting wills. While the constitution subsists, even the whole people can speak only in the constitutional manner by their representatives. So that the only voice of the people is the laws. And the laws must be presumed to be the will of the people until the repeal of them declare that the people have changed their minds.
I shall mention but another cause which facilitated the progress of the late insurrection. The danger of this country from Indian incursions had rendered it often necessary to assemble the militia without waiting for the orders of government, which would come too late for the danger. From experience it was found that attack was the best defence. Hence voluntary expeditions into the Indian country were frequently undertaken, and govern- ment, from a sense of their utility, afterwards sanctioned them by defraying their expenses. In this manner it had become habitual with the militia of these counties to assemble at the call of their officers without inquiring into the authority or object of the call. This habit, well known to the contrivers of the rendezvous at Braddock's Field, rendered the execution of their plan an easy matter. They issued their orders to the officers of the militia, who assembled their men, accustomed to obey orders of this kind given on the sudden and without authority. The militia came together without knowing from whom the orders originated or for what purpose they met. And when met, it was easy to communicate from breast to breast, more or less of the popular frenzy, till all felt it or found it prudent to dissemble and feign that they felt it. This gave appearance at length of strength and unanimity to the insurrection, silenced the well-disposed, and emboldened ruffians to proceed with audacity to subsequent outrages, which there was no energy to restrain nor force to punish.
In these reflections we find nothing consolatory ; all is sorrow and dis- grace. Let us turn then to the other side of the picture, and consider the conduct of government and of our fellow-citizens in other parts of the Union. A measure no less prudent than generous was adopted by the
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government. Commissioners were sent to offer us a full pardon of all past offences on the simple condition of future obedience. Lest these terms offered generously at once, and the best that could be offered should fail in reclaiming us to duty, the president ordered that a competent number of our fellow-citizens should be ready in arms to compel that obedience which reason and mercy could not produce. While the terms were under our con- sideration, there appeared a manifest reluctance in our fellow-citizens to draw their swords against their brethren. But no sooner was it known that we rejected those terms and threatened the government with war and disso- lution, than the contest among them was who should be foremost in the field. It was then no longer a doubt whether a sufficient number could be procured to go; but whether multitudes, beyond this number, could be per- suaded to stay. The merchant abandoned his warehouse, the lawyer his office, the mechanic his shop, the gentleman his pleasures, and every man the gains and enjoyments of domestic life, to endure hardships which they had never experienced before, and hazard their lives in defence of the laws. At the call, "Your country is in danger," the rich and the poor met together, forgetting all distinctions of stations and circumstances, and blended in one common class of patriots. Even the pacific Quaker, whose principles restrain him from shedding blood, now assumed the garb and weapons of war, and marched in arms to maintain the peace and government of his country.
In this we receive a lesson of the power of government, and are taught that, however riot and anarchy may triumph for a while, there is an energy and struggle to crush them ; that reason and the law are the only protection of free citizens ; that violence only brings ruin on its authors ; that, in times of sedition, it is the interest of all to be not lukewarm and indifferent, but firm and persevering on the side of public authority ; and that the faithful friends of law and order, however borne down for a time, will in the end be protected and rise above oppression.
Even at this bright prospect of the generons and spirited conduct of our patriotic fellow citizens, a cloud intervenes, though none of them fell by our arms, yet some have fallen victims to a change of climate and manner of living, an inclement season, and severity of fatigue, over swamps and moun- tains. Some gallant youths will never return to their anxious parents. Some parents will never return to bless their children in their dying mo- ments. And some husbands have expired without a wife to close their eyes. Can we think of this without suspicion that their blood may be upon our heads ?
But, gentlemen, the past cannot be recalled ; let us only study to improve it, and strive to make some compensation by our future conduct. For that purpose let us suppress the first seed of sedition and not allow it to grow up, as before, to a strength not to be resisted. Let even words tending to any violence or a breach of the peace be held criminal ; let every witness of such things carry the offender before a magistrate, that justice may be exe- cuted. And let every magistrate take heed that he hear not the sound in vain. To permit criminals to escape from punishment is to encourage crimes. Impunity begets offences as corruption begets maggots. A few examples of punishment of the late disorderly conduct given among ourselves in each county, will perhaps secure our place for many years and prevent the existence of many crimes and the necessity of many and severe punish- ments.
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