Albert Gallatin. The Speech of Albert Gallatin, a Representative from The County of Fayette, in the House of Representatives of The General Assembly of Pennsylvania, on the Important Question Touching the Validity of the Elections Held in the Four Western Counties of the State, on the 14th Day of October, 1794. With Notes and an Appendix, Containing Sundry Documents Relative to the Western Insurrection. Philadelphia: Printed by William W. Woodward, 1795. First edition. Octavo. 66 pages. Stitched as issued. Lightly dusted, lightly spotted, last leaf clipped at lower blank margin. Very good.
Gallatin resided in Western Pennsylvania, the heart of the protests against Alexander Hamilton's excise tax on whiskey. He had been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1793, but the Federalist-dominated Senate refused him a seat on the ground he had not been a naturalized citizen for the requisite nine years. He returned to Fayette County during the height of the Whiskey Rebellion, and was elected to Western Pennsylvania's Rebel Assembly. In that capacity he delivered this speech, his first printed work during a long, distinguished, and eventful career.
"In this crisis Gallatin played a dominant role. With superb courage and persuasive oratory he faced the excited and armed crowd, enheartened the moderates, won over the wavering, and at last secured a vote of 34 to 23 in the revolutionary committee of sixty for peaceable submission to the law of the country. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Gallatin saved western Pennsylvania from a civil war" (DAB). Gallatin's Speech is an extraordinarily detailed review of this critical period, the first serious challenge to federal authority in the new Republic.
Evans 28722. Sabin 26395.