ceeded: "I here put out of sight the persons
whose misbehavior has been taken advantage of to slander the
friends of popular rights; and I am happy to observe that, as far
as the circle of my observation and information extends, everybody
has lost sight of them, and views the abstract attempt on their
natural and constitutional rights in all its nakedness. I have
never heard, or heard of, a single expression or opinion which did
not condemn it as an inexcusable aggression."

Then, in full sympathy with the whiskey insurrectionists, he said: "And
with respect to the transactions against the excise law, it appears to
me that you are all swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions,
or that we do not know what these transactions have been. We know of
none which, according to the definitions of the law, have been anything
more than riotous. There was, indeed, a meeting to consult about a
separation. But to consult on a question does not amount to a
determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the
acting on such a determination; but we shall see, I suppose, what the
court lawyers, and courtly judges, and would-be embassadors will make of
it. The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it
by the constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and
last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and
setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to. The
information of our militia returned from the westward is uniform, that
though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of
their laughter, not of their fear; that one thousand men could have cut
off their whole force in a thousand places of the Alleghany; that their
detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it
a detestation of the government; and that separation, which perhaps was
a very distant and problematical event, is now near, and certain, and
determined in the mind of every man. I expected to have seen some
justification of arming one part of society against another; of
declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body which
has the sole right of declaring war; of being so patient of the kicks
and scoffs of our enemies, and rising at a feather against our friends;
of adding a million to the public debt, and deriding us with
recommendations to pay it if we can."

But the medicines of mo