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Original Document
The House of Representatives, "A Protest against the Passage of an Excise Tax," 1791


"House of Representatives, June 22d, 1791.

"The Legislature of this commonwealth, ever attentive to the rights of their constituents, and conceiving it a duty incumbent on them to express their sentiments on such matters of a public nature as in their opinion have a tendency to destroy their rights, have agreed to the following resolutions:

"Resolved, That any proceeding on the part of the United States, tending to the collection of revenue by means of excise, established on principles subversive of peace, liberty and the rights of the citizens, ought to attract the attention of this house.

"Resolved, That no public urgency, within the knowledge or contemplation of this house, can, in their opinion, warrant the adoption of any species of taxation which shall violate these rights which are the basis of our government, and which would exhibit the singular spectacle of a nation resolutely oppressing the oppressed of others in order to enslave itself.

"Resolved, That these sentiments be communicated to the senators representing the State of Pennsylvania in the Senate of the United States, with a hope that they will oppose every part of the excise bill now before the Congress, which shall militate against the rights and liberties of the people."



Credit: H. M. Brackenridge, History of the Western Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, commonly called the Whiskey Insurrection, 1794 (Pittsburgh, 1859), 20.
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