The second called for a committee of public safety "to call forth the resources of the western country to repel any hostile attempts that may be made against the rights of the citizens, or of the body of the people." Had this resolution been adopted, the people were definitively committed to overt rebellion.

This brought Mr.
Gallatin at once to his feet.

He denied that any hostile attempts against the rights of the people were threatened, and drew an adroit distinction between the regular army, which had not been called out, and the militia, who were a part of the people themselves; and to gain time he moved a reference of the resolutions to a committee who should be instructed to wait the action of the government.

In the course of his speech Gallatin denied the assertion that resistance to the excise law was legal, or that coercion by the government was necessarily hostile.
He was neither supported by his own friends nor opposed by those of Bradford.

He stood alone.
But Marshall withdrew his resolution, and a committee of sixty was appointed, with power to summon the people.