es responded, and the troops
came to the number of fifteen thousand, for he was in the habit of
doing things thoroughly, and meant to have an overwhelming force.
To Governor Lee of Virginia the command of the combined forces was
intrusted. "I am perfectly in sentiment with you, that the
business we are drawn out upon should be effectually executed,
and that the daring and factious spirit which threatens to
overturn the laws and to subvert the Constitution ought to be
subdued." Thus he wrote to Morgan, while the commissioners from the
insurgents were politely received, and told that the march of the
troops could not be countermanded. Washington would fain have gone
himself, in command of the army, but he felt that he could not leave
the seat of government for so long a time with propriety. He went as
far as Bedford with the troops, and then parted from them. When he
took leave, he wrote a letter to Lee, to be read to the army, in which
he said: "No citizen of the United States can ever be engaged in a
service more important to their country. It is nothing less than to
consolidate and to preserve the blessings of that revolution which
at much expense of blood and treasure constituted us a free and
independent nation." Thus admonished, the army marched, Hamilton going
with them in characteristic fashion to the end. They did their work
thoroughly. The insurrection disappeared, and resistance dropped
suddenly out of sight. The Scotch-Irish of the border, with all their
love of fighting, found too late that they were dealing with a power
very different from that of their own State. The ringleaders of the
insurrection were arrested and tried by civil process, the disorders
ceased, law reigned once more, and the "hateful tax" was duly paid and
collected.

The "Whiskey Rebellion" has never received due weight in the history
of the United States. Its story has been told in the utmost detail,
but its details are unimportant. As a fact, however, it is full of
meaning, and this meaning has been too much overlooked. That this
should be so, is not to be wondered at, for everything has conspired
to make it seem, after a century has gone by, both mean and trivial.
Its very name suggests ridicule and contempt, and it collapsed so
utterly that people laughed at it and despised it. Its leaders, with
the exception of Gallatin, were cheap and talkative persons of
little worth, and the cause itself was neither noble, romantic, nor
inspiriti