Thomas Mifflin document signed ("Tho Mifflin"). (Circular.) Broadside. One printed page of a bifolium, 10.25" x 14.25", Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; June 2, 1798. Docketed. Thomas Mifflin, signer of the U.S. Constitution, issues a circular as Governor of Pennsylvania addressed to militia officers requesting that militia be enrolled, organized, and equipped in case of war with France. Printed circular signed by Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Mifflin and addressed to the Huntington Brigade of the Pennsylvania Militia officers, requesting that the brigade be enrolled, organized, and equipped in light of a possible war with France. The circular reads, in part: "The existing crisis in the affairs of the Union, demands the serious attention of every friend to the independence, honor, and safety, of our Country. To obliterate the sense of gratitude, which was cherished for service rendered by France, during our conflict with Great Britain; to extinguish the enthusiasm, which was inspired by her first revolutionary movements, in favor of Liberty...are effects that can only find an adequate cause, in the system of violence and depredation, of injustice and contumely, by which the Government of that nation has, recently, disgraced its own character, and violated our rights...In addition, therefore, to the provisions which have been made by Congress, it remains, for the purposes of national defence, to pursue efficient measures for enrolling, organizing and equipping the great body of The Militia...Permit me, therefore, Gentleman, to call upon you...to unite, with alacrity and zeal, in the service of your country..." Mifflin's circular was issued against the backdrop of the Quasi-War with France, an undeclared naval war fought from 1798 to 1800, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the U.S. He was responding to an act of Congress that called for 80,000 men from the country's militia units. Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) was a member of Pennsylvania's Provincial Assembly in the early 1770s. During the American Revolution, he served as an aide-de-camp to General Washington and Quartermaster General; he was appointed major general in 1777. Mifflin then served two terms in the Continental Congress, during which he was elected president of the Congress from November 3, 1783 to November 30, 1784. He continued his service to Pennsylvania and the emerging nation by later serving as a delegate in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and, in 1787, the United States Constitutional Convention. After signing the U.S. Constitution in 1787, he replaced Benjamin Franklin as president of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Mifflin was unanimously reelected to the presidency on November 11, 1789, and headed the committee that penned the state's 1790 Constitution. That year, Mifflin was elected the last president of Pennsylvania and the first governor of the Commonwealth; he served as governor until 1799. Also included is an engraving of Mifflin by Edward Wellmore, circa 1790. Condition: Light edgewear with some moderate chipping to edges of the second blank sheet. Scattered dried adhesive residue at top and bottom margins of verso. HID03101062020 © 2022 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

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