2786. EXCISE LAW, Resisted.—
The
people in the western parts of this State
[Pennsylvania] have been to the excise officer,
and threatened to burn his house, &c.
They were blackened and otherwise disguised,
so as to be unknown. He has resigned, and
H [amilton] says there is no possibility of
getting the law executed there, and that probably
the evil will spread. A proclamation is
to be issued, and another instance of my being
forced to appear to approve what I have
condemned uniformly from its first conception.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 563.
Ford ed., vi, 261.
(Pa.,
May. 1793)
