At that time there were grave reasons why officers of the cabinet should for the moment forget personal difficulties, and come as a unit to the aid of the president. There were signs of disorder, and violence, and serious insurrection in the land. The excise law enacted in 1791, and modified and made less offensive during the last session of Congress, was yet vehemently opposed in some parts of the country. In western Pennsylvania, in particular, hostility to it had become the sentiment of an organized party, and combinations were formed to prevent the execution of it. A public meeting was held at Pittsburgh on the twenty-first of August, at which resolutions were adopted disapproving of the law, and appointing a committee to correspond with other committees in different parts of the Union on the subject. It was really a rebellious movement, as the temper of their closing resolution indicated.[40]
Information of these proceedings having reached the secretary of the treasury, he sent to the president all necessary papers on the subject for his information, assuring him that he should submit to the attorney-general the question whether the persons composing the meeting at Pittsburgh had not committed an indictable offence. He gave it as his opinion that it was expedient to exert the full form of the law against the offenders. "If this is not done," he said, "the spirit of disobedience will naturally extend, and the authority of the government will be prostrated. Moderation enough has been shown: it is time to assume a different tune." In subsequent letters he recommends the issuing of a proclamation on the subject by the president, and sent a draft of one to Washington. The president approved the measure, submitted it to Jefferson, and on the fifteenth of September he issued a proclamation, countersigned by the secretary of state, in which he warned all persons to desist from such unlawful combinations and proceedings, and requiring all courts, magistrates, and officers to bring the offenders to justice. Copies of this proclamation were sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, and also to the chief magistrates of North and South Carolina, where a similar defiance of law has been manifested.