9132. WHISKY INSURRECTION, Hamilton and.—
The servile copyist of Mr.
Pitt [Alexander Hamilton] thought he, too,
must have his alarms, his insurrections and
plots against the Constitution. * * * Hence
the example of employing military force for
civil purposes, when it has been impossible to
produce a single fact of insurrection, unless
that term be entirely confounded with occasional
riots, and when ordinary process of law
had been resisted indeed in a few special cases
but by no means generally, nor had its effect
been duly tried. But it answered the favorite
purposes of strengthening government and increasing
public debt; and, therefore, an insurrection
was announced and proclaimed, and
armed against, but could never be found. And
all this under the sanction of a name which has
done too much good not to be sufficient to cover
harm also. What is equally astonishing is that
by the pomp of reports, proclamations, armies,
&c., the mind of the Legislature itself was so
fascinated as never to have asked where, when,
and by whom this insurrection has been produced?
The original of this scene in another
country was calculated to excite the indignation
of those whom it could not impose on; the
mimicry of it here is too humiliating to excite
any feeling but shame.—
To James Monroe.
Ford ed., vii, 16.
(M.
May. 1795)
