Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 11.djvu/801

 APPENDIX. PROCLAMA'I` ION. N0. 8. 757 No. 8. Respecting Resistance in Pennsylvania to the Law: Icqyhng Taxes. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. March 12, 1799. A PROCLAMATION. \Vm·:m-:As combinations to defeat the execution of the laws for the valuation Preamble reof the lands and dwelling-houses within the United States, have existed in the citing the [wi counties of Northampton, Montgomery, and Bucks, in the State of Pennsyl- °" °‘2mb;x”“£°”“ vania, and have proceeded in a manner subversive of the just authority of the t°"°"°°t ° V"' government, by misreplresentations to render the law odious, by deterring the public officers of the mted States to forbear the execution of their functions, and by openly threatening their- lives: And whereas the endeavors of the wellaffected citizens, as well as of the executive officers, to conciliate a compliance with those laws, have failed of success, and certain persons in the county of Northampton aforesaid, have been hardy enough to perpetrate certain acts, which I amadvised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war agnst the United States, the said persons exceeding one hundred in number, and armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, having, on the seventh dayof this present month of March, proceeded to the house of Abraham Lovering, in the town of Bethlehem, and there com elled \Villiam Nichols, Marshal of the United States, in and for the District of li‘ennsylva.nia, to desist from the execution of certain legal process in his hands to be executed, and having com lled him to discharge and set at liberty certain persons whom he had arrestedyloy virtue of criminal process duly issued for offences against the United States, and having impeded and prevented the Commissioner and the Assemors, appointed in conformity with the laws aforesaid, in the county of Northampton, aforesaid, by threats and personal injury from executing the said laws, avowing as the motives of these illegal and treasonable mceedings, an intention to prevent, by force of arms, the execution of the said laws, and to withstand, by open violence, the lawful authority of the government of the United States: And whereas by the Constitution and Laws of the United States, I am authorized, whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any State, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the Marshals, to call forth military force to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed: And whereas it is in my judgment necessary to call forth military force in order to suppress the combinations aforesaid, and to cause the laws atbresaid to be duly executed: And I have accordingly determined so to do, under the solemn conviction that the exential interests of the United States demand it: Wherefore, I, JOHN ADAMS, President of the United States, Insm-gent; do hereby command all persons beinv insurgents as aforesaid, and all others commanded be whom it may concern, on or before llfonday next, bcinrr the eighteenth day of d¤*P°'“· this present month, to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes; and I do moreover warn all persons whomsoever acainst aiding, abetting,_or ooinforting the perpetrators of the aforesaid treasonalne acts; and I do require all otllcers and others, good and faithibl citizens, according to their respective duties and the laws of the land, to exert their utmost endeavours to prevent and suppress such dangerous and unlawful proceeding _ In testimony whereof, I have caused the Seal of the United States of America to be aflixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the City of Philadelphia, the twelfth day of [L. s.] March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, and of the independence of the said United States of America the twenty-third. JOHN ADAMS. BY ·rm·: Pnnsxnmxrz TIMOTHY PICKERIN G, Secretary ry State.