. At three succeeding sessions they
have revised that act ... and _you_ have actually paid more than a
million of dollars on account of it. But the four western counties
of Pennsylvania undertake to rejudge and reverse your decrees.
_You_ have said, 'The Congress _shall have power_ to lay
_excises_.' They say, 'The Congress shall _not have_ this power;'
or, what is equivalent, they shall not exercise it, for a _power_
that may not be exercised is a nullity. Your representatives have
said, and four times repeated it, 'An excise on distilled spirits
_shall_ be collected;' they say, 'It _shall not_ be collected. We
will punish, expel, and banish the officers who shall attempt the
collection.'"

The peace commissioners returned to Philadelphia and made their report
on September 24. The next day, September 25, Washington issued a
proclamation calling out the troops. In it he again warned the
insurgents. The militia, already armed, accoutred, and equipped, and
awaiting marching orders, moved at once. Governor Mifflin at first
hesitated about his power to call out the militia, but when the
President's requisition was made, he summoned the legislature in special
session, and obtained from it a hearty support, with authority to accept
volunteers and offer a bounty. Thus fortified, he made a tour through
the lower counties of the State, and by his extraordinary popular
eloquence soon filled up the ranks. The old soldier led his troops in
person. Those of New Jersey were commanded by their governor, Richard
Howell of Revolutionary fame. These formed the right wing and marched to
rendezvous at Bedford to cross the mountains by the northern and
Pennsylvania route. The left wing, composed of the Virginia troops,
under the veteran Morgan, and those of Maryland, under Samuel Smith, a
brigadier-general in the army of the Revolution, assembled at Cumberland
to cross the mountains by Braddock's Road. The chief command was
confided to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia. Washington accompanied the
army as far as Bedford. Hamilton continued with it to Pittsburgh, which
was reached in the last days of October and the first of November, after
a wearisome march across the mountains in heavy weather. Arrived in the
western counties, the army found no opposition.

Meanwhile, on October 2, the standing committee met again at Parkinson's
Ferry, and unanimously adopted resolutions declaring the gen