Whereas combinations to defeat the execution of the laws for the
valuation of lands and dwelling houses within the United States have
existed in the counties of Northampton, Montgomery, and Bucks, in the
State of Pennsylvania, and have proceeded in a manner subversive of the
just authority of the Government, by misrepresentations, to render the
laws odious, by deterring the public officers of the United States to
forbear the execution of their functions, and by openly threatening
their lives; and
Whereas the endeavors of the well-affected 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 am
advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the
United States, the said persons, exceeding one hundred in number and
armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, having, on the 7th day of this
present month of March, proceeded to the house of Abraham Lovering, in
the town of Bethlehem, and there compelled William Nichols, marshal of
the United States in and for the district of Pennsylvania, to desist
from the execution of certain legal process in his hands to be executed,
and having compelled him to discharge and set at liberty certain persons
whom he had arrested by virtue of criminal process duly issued for
offenses against the United States, and having impeded and prevented the
commissioner and the assessors, 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 proceedings 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
aforesaid to be duly executed, and I have accordingly determined so to
do, under the solemn conviction that the essential interests of the
United States demand it:
Wherefore I, John Adams, President of the United States, do hereby
command all persons being insurgents as aforesaid, and all others whom
it may concern, on or before Monday next, being the 18th day of this
present month, to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective
abodes; and I do moreover warn all persons whomsoever against aiding,
abetting, or comforting the perpetrators of the aforesaid treasonable
acts; and I do require all officers and others, good and faithful
citizens, according to their respective duties and the laws of the land,
to exert their utmost endeavors to prevent and suppress such dangerous
and unlawful proceedings.
In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States of
America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my
hand.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Philadelphia, the 12th day of March, A.D. 1799, and
of the Independence of the said United States of America the
twenty-third.