eeting 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.

In this matter Washington proceeded with great prudence and caution. He
felt indignant at the great outrage thus offered to the government, but
was unwilling to employ force while more peaceful measures were left
untried. "I have no doubt," he said, "the proclamation will undergo many
strictures; and, as the effect proposed may not be answered by it, it
will be necessary to look forward in time to ulterior arrangements:"
that is to say, the employment of regular troops as a last resort.

As Washington intimated it might not, the proclamation produced no
salutary effect. Too many of the civil magistrates themselves were
concerned in the insurrectionary movements, and the few who were not
were totally incapable of maintaining the sovereignty of the laws. With
moderation the government instituted legal proceedin