e breakers at the
outset of his political voyage. The excise law passed Congress on March
3, 1791. On June 22 the state legislature, by a vote of 36 to 11,
requested their senators and representatives in Congress to oppose every
part of the bill which "shall militate against the rights and liberties
of the people."

The western counties of Pennsylvania--Westmoreland, Fayette, Washington,
and Allegheny--lie around the head-waters of the Ohio in a radius of
more than a hundred miles. At this time they contained a population of
about seventy thousand souls. Pittsburgh, the seat of justice, had about
twelve hundred inhabitants. The Alleghany Mountains separate this wild
region from the eastern section of the State. There were few roads of
any kind, and these lay through woods. The mountain passes could be
traveled only on foot or horseback. The only trade with the East was by
pack-horses, while communication with the South was cut off by hostile
Indian tribes who held the banks of the Ohio. This isolation from the
older, denser, and more civilized settlements bred in the people a
spirit of self-reliance and independence. They were in great part
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, a religious and warlike race to whom the
hatred of an exciseman was a tradition of their forefathers. Having no
market for their grain, they were compelled to preserve it by converting
it into whiskey. The still was the necessary appendage of every farm.
The tax was light, but payable in money, of which there was little or
none. Its imposition, therefore, coupled with the declaration of its
oppressive nature by the Pennsylvania legislature, excited a spirit of
determined opposition near akin to revolution.

Unpopular in all the western part of the State, Hamilton's bill was
especially odious to the people of Washington County. The first meeting
in opposition to it was held at Red Stone Old Fort or Brownsville, the
site of one of those ancient remains of the mound-builders which abound
in the western valleys. It was easily reached by Braddock's Road, the
chief highway of the country. Here gathered on July 27, 1791, a number
of persons opposed to the law, when it was agreed that county committees
should be convened in the four counties at the respective seats of
justice. Brackenridge, in his "Incidents of the Western Insurrection,"
says that Albert Gallatin was clerk of the meeting. One of these
committees met in the town of Washington on August 23, when vi