d him the
resolutions which he intended to move, intimating at the same time that
he wished Mr. Gallatin to act as secretary. Mr. Gallatin told him that
he highly disapproved the resolutions, and had come to oppose both him
and Bradford, and therefore did not wish to serve. Marshall seemed to
waver; but soon the people met, and Edward Cook of Fayette, who had
presided at Braddock's Field, was chosen chairman, with Gallatin for
secretary. Bradford opened the proceedings with a summary sketch of the
action previously taken, declared the purpose of the committee to be to
determine on a course of action, and his own views to be the appointment
of committees to raise money, purchase arms, enlist volunteers, or draft
the militia: in a word, though he did not use it, to levy war.

At this point in the proceedings the arrival of the commissioners from
the President was announced, but the progress of the meeting was not
interrupted. The commissioners were at a house near the meeting, but
there were serious objections against holding a conference at this
place.

Marshall then moved his resolutions. The first, declaratory of the
grievance of carrying citizens great distances for trial, was
unanimously agreed to. The second called for a committee of public
safety "to call forth the resources of the western country to repel any
hostile attempts that may be made against the rights of the citizens, or
of the body of the people." Had this resolution been adopted, the people
were definitively committed to overt rebellion. This brought Mr.
Gallatin at once to his feet. He denied that any hostile attempts
against the rights of the people were threatened, and drew an adroit
distinction between the regular army, which had not been called out, and
the militia, who were a part of the people themselves; and to gain time
he moved a reference of the resolutions to a committee who should be
instructed to wait the action of the government. In the course of his
speech Gallatin denied the assertion that resistance to the excise law
was legal, or that coercion by the government was necessarily hostile.
He was neither supported by his own friends nor opposed by those of
Bradford. He stood alone.

But Marshall withdrew his resolution, and a committee of sixty was
appointed, with power to summon the people. The only other objectionable
resolution was that which pledged the people to the support of the laws,
except the excise law and the taking of cit