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practicable, as will deter from opposition, save the effusion of the blood of the citizens, and serve the object to be accomplished." He proposed a force of twelve thousand men, of whom three thousand were to be cavalry, and he advised that, in addition to the Pennsylvania militia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia should each contribute a quota. All the members of the Cabinet except Randolph concurred in Hamilton's opinion. The practical execution of the measures was entrusted to Hamilton, who acted with great sagacity. Some appearance of timidity and inertia in Pennsylvania state authority was indirectly but effectually counteracted by measures which showed that the military expedition would move even if Pennsylvania held back. Although some troops were to gather at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, others were to meet at Cumberland Fort, Virginia. The business was so shrewdly managed that Pennsylvania state authority fell obediently into line, and the insurgents were so cowed by the determined action of the Government that they submitted without a struggle. Washington thought that this event would react upon the clubs and "effectuate their annihilation sooner than it might otherwise have happened." A general collapse among them certainly followed, and they disappeared from the political scene. It is in the nature of precaution that the more successful it is the less necessary it appears to have been, and thus the complete success of Hamilton's management furnished his enemies with a new argument against him of which they afterwards made great use. The costly military expedition that had no fighting to do was continually held up to public ridicule. That the expense was trifling in comparison with the objects achieved must deeply impress any one who examines the records of the times. A mistake might have been fatal to the existence of the Government. It has become so powerful and massive since that time, that we can hardly realize what a rickety structure it then was, and how readily, in less capable hands, it might have collapsed. Randolph, then Secretary of State, seems to have been in a panic. Fauchet, the French minister at that time, reported to his government that Randolph called upon him and with a grief-stricken countenance declared, "It is all over; a civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country." He represented to Fauchet that there were four men whose talents, influence, and energy might save it. "But debto
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