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 “An Act of the Third Congress of the United States, First Session.” The extension of these loans, and St. Clair’s failure to subdue Native Americans on the frontier, contributed to the outbreak of the Whiskey Rebellion in the summer of 1794.
Edmund Randolph. Document Signed, as Secretary of State; Philadelphia, May 31, 1794.
Inventory # 20894 $5,000
“An ACT further extending the time for receiving on Loan the Domestic Debt of the United States... That the term for receiving on loan that part of the domestic debt of the United States which shall (be extended)…until the last day of December next inclusively on the same terms and conditions…Provided, That the books for receiving the said subscriptions shall be opened only at the Treasury of the United States…
An ACT to Compensate Arthur St. Clair…for his expenses while going from New York to Fort Pitt…That he be further allowed at the rate of five dollars per day…being the time he was employed in the business of Indian treaties…”
The printed approval of House Speaker Frederick A. Muhlenberg, Vice President John Adams and President George Washington appear above Randolph's signature.
Historical Background:
This Act, continuing the measure for assuming the Revolutionary debts of the states, was not well received in frontier regions of the new country. In western Pennsylvania, in particular, the controversial measure contributed to the outbreak of the Whiskey Rebellion, which began in 1791 and lasted until 1794.
The Treaties refer to St. Clair's work negotiating the Treaties of Fort Harmar in 1789, which provided only a temporary calm between white settlers and Native Americans in the Northwest Territories. Following an expedition led by General Josiah Harmer in 1790, St. Clair led a second military detachment to suppress the tribes in 1791. Both expeditions were defeated by the Native Americans. It was in part to pay for the military activity against the frontier natives that Congress decided to put an additional tariff on the sale of whiskey at the source.
Edmund Randolph (1753-1813) joined the war effort as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington. After the war, he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia from 1786-1788, a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, U.S. attorney general from 1789–1794, and Secretary of State from 1794–1795.
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