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 inspiriting.  Nevertheless, it was a dangerous and formidable business, for it was the first direct challenge to the new government.  It was the first clear utterance of the stern question asked of every people striving to live as a nation, Have you a right to live?  Have you a government able to fight and to endure?  Have you men ready to take up the challenge?  These questions were put by rough frontier settlers, and put in the name and for the sake of distilling whiskey unvexed by law.  But they were there, they had to be answered, and on the reply the existence of the government was at stake.  If it failed, all was over.  If the States did not respond to this first demand, that they should put down disorder and dissension within the borders of one of their number, the experiment had failed.  It came, as it almost always does come, to one man to make the answer.  That man took up the challenge.  He did not move too soon.  He waited with unerring judgment, as Lincoln waited with the Proclamation of Emancipation, until he had gathered public opinion behind him by his firmness and moderation.  Then he struck, and struck so hard that the whole fabric of insurrection and riot fell helplessly to pieces, and wiseacres looked on