Newspaper Page Text
From the National Intelligencer.
TO THE WHIGS AND CONSERVA
TIVES OF THE UNITED STATES.
Executive Commitke Room, )
Washington, August 35, 1840. \ !
The splendid election resets just an- i
nounced from the States of North Carolina,
Kentucky, and Indiana, gladden the heart
of the patriot, and stimulate him to greater I
efforts in the service of his country. In
these States, tifc enemies of the Constitu
tion and ofthe prosperity of the Republic
are annihilated. The destructive arc pan
ic stricken—turn which way they may,
their affrighted vision is startled with the
“hand-writing on the wall.” In Alabama ‘
they have barely escaped defeat . Missou
ri is “coming to the rescue.” With forced I
but feeble shouts, they exult over Illinois, I
and rejoice that they have been able—to
hold their own.
Since the nomination of General Harri
son, the States of Connecticut, Rhode Is
land, Virginia, Louisiana, and North Car
olina, all of which voted for Martin Van
Buren in 1836, have proclaimed in no e- j
quivocal language, their allegiance to the
country anil its Constitution.
The information which we have rcceiv- ;
ed,and which we continue to receive, from
the States of Pennsylvania, New York,
Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland,
Delaware, Virginia, Tennessee and Geor
gia, is well calculated to inspire us with
fresh confidence in the intelligence and pat
riotism of the People, and with the convic
tion that their slumbering vengeance is
awakened into life and action, ready to lay
hold ofthe pillars ofthe temple which cor
ruption has raised on the ruins ofthe Con
stitution and welfare of the nation, and
crush beneath its fragments, its (tower
grasping and infatuated architects.
Excessive confidence in our own strength
is the only danger to be apprehended. Let
us not rest in fancied security. Let us not
repose on our laurels so freshly and gal
lantly won, but rush into the battle-field
in quest of new achievements. The ene
my is rich in -the means of corruption, and i
they will use them with no sparing hand, j
A mercenary legion of one hundred thou
sand office-holders, who fight for their sal
aries and their bread, are arrayed against
you. The money of the people, now in the
hands of the President by his sub-treasu
rers, will tickle the palms of the purcha
sable. A ribald and stipendiary press,
sustained by government patronage, will
scatter its vile trash among you. To meet
successfully these fearful odds against you,
require vigorous and untiring exertions.—
Let us not fear that our majorities will be
too overwhelming.
The Administration and the principles
on which it acts should not only be pros
trated but prostrated effectually and for
ever. It should pass to its long account
amid the exultations ofimmense majorities,
and without the hope of a resurrection.—
The rebukeabout to be administered should
not only be severe, but astonishing. It is
due to the Constitution, to the country, to
retributive justice, and to posterity, that
the political crimes of this Administration
should be marked with a reprobation deep
as your sufferings, and broad as the Un
ion. The “hiejoed” which the people are
about to write on its tomb should be in cap
itals, bold and prominent as are its dere
lictions from duty. Thus written it will
stand through future ages as a political
“memento mori” to any person who, “dress,
ed in a little brief authority,” shall play
the tyrant, forgetful of the powerthat made ‘
him.
Is there a patriot in the land whose bo
som does not swell with pride and exulta
tion at the briliantprosperity now dawning
on his desecrated’ country ? On the 4th of
March next, History, with iron pen, will
inscribe on her marble tablets, On this day,
by the almost unanimous voice of a confi
ding, abused, and intelligent People, was
banished from the Capitol the first Ameri
caw Nero, who laughed at the calamities
with which he had scourged his country -
rnen, mocked at the sufferings which he
had created, and tauntingly told them
“ that they looked to Government for too
much.”
Then will the country shake off theshac
kies with which folly and madness had
bound her young and vigorous limbs, rise
with new strength and press onward to her
high destiny. And who among you will
not, on that auspicious day, join the joyous
song, and with honest pride and patriotic
exultation mingle your voice with the shouts
of millions, and exclaim, “I, too, fought at
the battle of Waterloo !” To all such who
have up to this period stood by as idle spec
tators #fthe fierce conflict now being wa
ged between the People and the olfice-hold
ers, let us say—“ Delay no longer. Inac
tion is dangerous to the Republic. Rally
on the side of your country, and prove
your love to her institutions.”
We use no hyperbole when we say that
she is but one remove from a practical
monarchy! Give to Mr. Van Buren a
standing army of 200,000 men, and your
liberties are at an end. Already is he in
the possession ofthe entire revenues of the
country. The national purse is at his un
licensed control. Think you that he will
abandon his wild schemes of an over
wrought ambition ? Think you that he
will cease to urge upon the consideration
of Congress the notorious project of an im
mense standing army ? Think you that
there is in Congress independence sufficient
to deny him any request ! No, no—“ Lay
not that flattering unction to your souls!”
Who could have been found on the first
day of January, 183?, bold 1 enough to have
predicted that a measure which had been
denounced by nearly the unanimous voice
ofthe People as “ disorganizing and revo
lutionary, as “ subversive of the princi
ples of the Government from its earliest his
tory,” as “ enlarging to an alarming ex
tent the boundaries of Executive power,”
would at this time have been the law of
the land ? But such is the melancholy
fact! The national Legislature furnishes
you with no protection, no guaranty against
the exactions of Executive power. It is the
fundametttal law of the party” that the
President “ can do no wrong.” His will
is the law of “ the party,” both in and out
of Congress, and wo to the man who dares
to oppose it. He is denounced as a traitor
and renegade.
The sleck-hounds of the Executive,
thirsty for blood, are unleashed from their
kennels, and with eager scent pursue the
object of their hatred. They soon banquet
on the mutilated carcass ; with crimsoned
muzzles, they return to their masters, giv
ing gratifying evidences that his orders
have been faithfully executed, and are
ugain kept in reserve for some fresh victim
of Executive vengeance. Under this reign
of terror and proscription, place no depen
dence on Congress. It is no longer a shield
between the rights of the people and the
usurpation ofthe President. It caters for
Executive gratification, and panders to his
cravings for power. The same men who,
but a short time since, spoke of a Sub-
Treasury bill with horror, and who now
condemn the standing army project with
apparent sincerity, will at the bidding of
the President, adopt the latter with as much
unanimity asthey enacted the former.—
The same servile partisan majority who
here gave him the “purse,” who at his nod
disfranchised, blindly disfranchised, a sov
ereign State without reading one syllable
ofthe evidence, will not hesitate to arm 1
him with the “s-ivord” also.
There is but one step between the Presi
dent and despotic power. Lose no time in
throwingyourselves between them. If you
value your liberties, achieved by the blood
of your fathers—if you woa-kl hand them
over unimpaired to your children, hesitate
no longer, but join the army of patriots
marching to victory under the banner of
the Constitution, and of “ Harrison and
Reform.”
The history of the last six months ad
monishes us to warn you against the false
hoods and calumnies ofthe Administration !
press. Within that period, you have been j
told that Gen. Harrison was a “weak, im
becile, old man in his dotage.” The ink
with which the slander was penned was
scarcely dry when wc heard of him at Fort’
Meigs, one of the scenes of his glory, ad-1
dressing, in the full voice of vigorous man- I
hood and with the fervor of youth, an im
mense multitude, on the great subjects
which so deeply agitate the public mind,
and vindicating his fair fame from the as
persions which malignity has attempted to
cast upon it. More recently has he visited
Fort Greenville, arfd again, with his usual
ability and eloquence, addressed a large
concourse of his fellow-citizens. Soon,
perchance, the feed libellers of the Exec
utive organs may announce that he is the
victim of disease, and in the last stage of
mortality ; and attempt to prove it, too, by
the affidavits of some of their vile retainers.
Within that period you have also been told
that he was in the custody of “keepers,” im
mured in an “iron cage.” Be not surpris
ed if you should ere long be informed by
the same authority that he had become the
inmate of a mad-house, and that it should
be vouched for by the same “ respectable ”
testimony. Allow us, then, to warn you
against yielding the slightest belief to the
thousand slanders with which the mendicant
press at the Capitol, and its partisan ad
juncts throughout the country, will abound
from this time to the close of the elections.
Already have they falsified the records of
the past, committed forgeries, and scatter
ed their libels broad cast over the land.
Permit us also to call your serious con
sideration to the importance of an efficient
organization. Hitherto you have been bea
ten more by the force of the superior drill
and discipline of your opponents, than by
numerical strength ; or rather, their per
fect organization, has enabled them to bring
all their forces into the field against you.
That organization, in the Northern States
especially, extends to the appointment of
committees in all the school districts in the
several towns. Let us take lessons in this
respect from the enemy. For the first time
now present an unbroken and undivided
front, writhing under a common suffering,
and animated by a common hope. Let ev
ery friendofhis country’s welfare be at his
post, and in a few short weeks’ he will wit
ness the total overthrow of the author of
her calamity. R. GARLAND,
Chairman of Committee.
J. C. Clark, Secretary.
From the Columbus Enquirer.
HARRISON AND TROUP.
Gen. Harrison is denounced as a Feder
i alist, because he approved of the conduct
j of the elder Adams, relative to the antici
i pated war with France—because he spoke
respectfully of Mr. Adams, as a gentie
-1 tnan and patriot—and opposed the disbaud-
I ing of the army.
The same reasoning would condemn
Gen. Smith, of Maryland, Thomas Jeffer
son and George M. Troup ofthe same
crime. Gen. Smith voted with Gen Harri
son on that question, in fact, was the orig
inator of the army scheme. Mr. Jefferson
spoke in favor of the war, and George M.
Troup, in speaking of it, uses the following
language, viz :
“When the French Directory, in the
name of liberty, which it abused, and in
the name of honov, which it sullied, avail
ing itself ofthe generous sympathies’of our
people, hadl essayed to involve them in the
conflicts of Europe,, and ore the side of
France, Mr. Adams resented the insults
and repelled the indignities of those mis
named republicans, with a patriot firmness,
worthy of his former life ; and a corrupt
government of the most powerful nation of
Christendom, which had dared to demand
a base bribe, as the price of peace, was
instructed that the American people were
ready to pay millions for defence, butnota
cent for tribute. Long before his sun went
down, truth and justice having tranquili
zed the passions, the respect and the affec
tions of the good and worthy had settled on
the venerable Patriarch, and his last days
were made serene and happy by the con
templation of an old man approaching to
his hundredth year, surrounded by millions
whom he delighted tocall his children, and
who in gratitude for his services, would
follow him with tears and benedictions to
his grave.”
Who can read the above and entertain a
shadow of respect for the pitiful pettifog
ger, who would attempt to stigmatize Gen.
Harrison as a black cockade federalist, for
acting and thinking in common with Smith
and Jefferson and Troup ?
From the South-western Virginian.
Mr. Editor:—lf you think proper, you
can publish the following ; if not, no harm
done:
WHAT 1 HAVE NOT WHAT I HAVE HEARD.
HEARD.
I have never heard I have heard those
a slaveholder de- who never did own a
nounce General liar- negro, call General
rison as an abolition- Harrison an aboli
ist. tionist.
I have never heard I have heard those
a man of courage who could not be
pronounce him a cow-kicked within the
ard. smell of gunpowder,
pronounce him a cow
jard.
I have never heard I have heard To
a Democrat call him ries and Agrarians
a Federalist. denominate him a Fe
deralist.
I have never heard I have heard block
a man of sense call heads call him an
him an imbecile. imbecile.
I have never heard I have heard dis
an honest man call honest men and de
him a knave. faulters call him a
knave.
I have never heard I have heard loaf
a respectable, indus- ers and liars say, he
trious man say, that voted to sell white
he voted to sell white men for debt; and
men for debt; and
I have never heard I have heard To
of a Tory who likediries and rowdies a
him. jbuse him for his pa-
Itriotism.
I have heard many more things, Mr.
Editor, of which I will inform you in my
next Epistle to the Vandals.
In the meantime, I remain yours, &c.
WILKES & LIBERTY.
From the Southern Recorder.
We experience a singular conflict be
tween the feelings of contempt and the lu
dicrous, whenever we are called on to wit
ness the crocodile tears which our political
opponents of the press shed in regard to Ab
olitionism and its dangers, as connected
with the election of Gen. Harrison to the
Presidency. As we discover the little im
pression, however, which all this cant and
hypocrisy produces on the good sense ofthe
people, the sense of the ludicrous, we be
lieve, prevails with us, as we see our Van
Buren opponents, in view of Gen. Harrison’s
election, shedding the briny (tear over the
poor South, and blowing their noses in sym
pathetic cadence over her anticipated suf
ferings. The solemn hypocrisy of these
pretended tears, and actual nose blowings,
so exquisitely absurd, so richly impudent,
present a picture so inimitably grotesque,
that it is irresistible to one who has the
slightest perception ofthe ludicrous.
Because the people of the South will not
choose as the conservator of their domestic
institutions, a man who never lived in a
slave State, and who consequently knows
but little of the nature of the institution, and
this too in preference to one born and raised
in old Virginia, who does know all about
the institution, and was raised under its in
fluence—because of this strange course of
the people, our Van Buren brother of the
quill, covers his eyes with his hands, and
groans most musically over our risk ! Be
cause the people of the South think these
interests safer in the hands of a cabinet o
ver which,say our opponents,Henry Clay is
to possess unbounded influence : a man who
owns himselfmore slaves than Mr. Van Bu.
ren and all his cabinet, Poinsett and For
syth included —because they thus think, a
las ! alas ! the heart of our Van Buren of
fice-holder is touched with commisseration,
he goes to the street corners and lifts up
his voice and weeps. Alas for us, that the
son of old Benjamin Harrison, the signer of
the Declaration of Independence, from old
Virginia, himself by birth and nurture a
true Virginian, is now going to rule over us.
Alas for us and for our domestic institu
tions, that Henry Clay and John Tyler,
and Mr. Preston and others are now about
to have a controling influence over the cab
inet councils of the United States! What
will become of our domestic institutions,
when these men,w'ho own themselves so ma
| ny hundred slaves, shall control, on this
subject, the cabinet councils ? We must
surely be in a blue way ; and if ever there
was a time for men of the South to blow
their noses, and blow them hard, now’s the
day and now’s the hour. To be sure Mar
tin owns no slaves ; neither for that matter,
so far as we know, does even his Secretary
of State, Mr. Forsyth, and we cannot say
that there is even one owned by the whole
cabinet; but what of that l Has’nt Martin
the veto ? answer us that; hasn’t he, we
ask, the veto; and’who will not acknowl
edge that the veto is every thing ? The ve
to is every thing ? The veto ! Listen to
Mr. Forsyth, the Veto—the Veto! Well,
well, the veto no doubt is a great thing in
its way. but we have rather a preference
for old 1 Gen. Harrison’s safe-guard on this
point—the Constitution, and the veto is but
a questionable thing at best, and as unsafe
to the protected as it is questionable. But
if the groans are exhaled and the tears shed
on account ofthe Veto, this wonderful “Ve
to”—“the Veto”—why we tell you to wipe
your noses, and cheer up, for the old Gen
eral will bring with him upon this subject,
the Constitution, and this sonorous veto, too.
Will this satisfy our brothers of the quill ?
will this dry their eyes ? it ought to, we
think ; but we doubt whether it will have
that effect until after the election. Then,
however, we have no doubt that our broth
ers of the quill, now so lugubrious and woe
begone, will enliven the sadness of their de
feat, by the remembrance of their own lu
dicrous efforts, and laugh away their mor
tification on the retrospect of their present
comic essays at tragedy.
From the Newark (N. J.) Advertiser.
To show the utter shamelessness of the
Van Buren party in ascribing the great
Whig triumph, in Vermont, to Abolition
and Anti-Masonry, it is only necessary to
state, that Mr. Dillingham, the late candi
date of that party for Governor, is a decided
Abolitionist, and Mr. Barber, the late can
didate for Lieutenant Governor, is one of
the principal officers of the State Abolition
Society ; both were supported on anti-sla
very grounds, and receive the votes of the
most of the abolitionist electors ; and both
were influential members ofthe Anti-Maso
nic party also—Mr. Barber having edited
an anti-masonic paper, and been appointed
Secretary of State during the anti-masonic
ascendancy.
From the Madisonian.
TEST QUESTIONS.
There are questions which the people
should ask themselves before they go to the
ballot-box, the answers to which must in
fluence their votes. Whether William
Henry Harrison, or Martin Van Buren, in
a merely personal view, ought to be elec
ted, is a matter of minor consideration.—
In fact, it becomes us to discard all con
siderations which look solely to the gratifi
cation of the ambition of any individual.—
We go for principle which must survive
and influence the fate of remotest genera
tions, while those by whom they are ad
ministered, perform their brief duties and
then mingle with “the clods of the valley.”
But as the representatives of these princi
ples, it is of the highest importance that
we make a correct selection. In this view
let every voter put to himself the following
questions :
1. Ought the revenue of the county to be
placed in the hands of the President, to be
used at his discretion, without any control
of the representatives ofthe People ?
If he can say “Aye” to this, he will vote
for Mr. Van Buren ; if “No,” for General
Harrison.
2. Ought the President to have 200,000
armed men at his disposal, to execute all
his commands, subject to the penalty of
death, according to military law, in case of
disobedience ?
If he says “ Aye” to this, he will vote for
Mr. Van Buren ; if he say “ No,” he will
vote for Gen. Harrison.
3. Ought the wages of labor to be redu
ced to less than 25 cents a day, to the stan
dard which prevails in countries where
those who labor arc called serfs, and peas
ants ?
If he say “ Aye, 3 ’ he will vote for Mr.
Van Buren ; if he say “ No,” he will vote
for Gen. Harrison.
4. Ought the public revenues to be ex
pended, and public officers to devote their
time as missionaries, for the purpose of
keeping one man in power and excluding
another ?
If he can say “Aye,” he will vote for
Mr. Van Buren; if “No,” for General
Harrison.
5. Is it important that the currency should
be restored to a wholesome condition ; that
the obstructions which choke up the chan
nels of industry should be removed ; that
agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,
should be re-established on a secure basis ;
that labor should have its recompense; that
economy and accountability should be en
forced in the public expenditures—and that
the fetters should be broken which retain
the freedom of speech and opinion ?
If he says “ Aye,” he will vote for Gen.
Harrison; if “No,” he will vote for Mr.
Van Buren.
Let every voter ask himself these ques
tions, and vote as his conscience must re
ply, and Mr. Van Buren will not receive
forty votes in the electoral colleges.
RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.
It is a remarkable fact, and one that
should inculcate an important lesson to the
servants ofthe people, never again to defy
and trample upon popular rights, at the
beck of mere party recklessness, that, of
the eight members from Vermont and
Maine who dared to aid in consummating
the New Jersey outrage, and the passage
ofthe Sub-Treasury, but one has been re
elected.
John Smith,lsaac Fletcher, Joshua A.
Lowell, Virgil D. Parris, and Albert Smith,
have each been rejected by the people
whose confidence they had abused ! Da
vee and Anderson were not even candidates
for re-election,’ and the constituents of the
former have proclaimed in a thunder tone,
by a change unprecedented in a New Eng
land district, their displeasure at his career
of political infamy.
On the other hand, the five Whig mem
bers who opposed to the utmost both outra
ges, have each one been re-elected by in
creased majorities, in no case less than a
thousand, and by an aggregate majority of
Fourteen Thousand !— Boston Atlas.
The New York Correspondent of the
National Intelligencer, writing under date
of September 9th, communicates the fol
lowing information.
It has been ascertained that the United
States Treasury is indebted to the Bank of
America nearly three millions of dollars
on Treasury notes, which had been nego
tiated there “to raise the wind.” The
Bank’s loan to merchants amounts to about
$1,300,000. Now, it does not look well
in the honorable powers in Washington to
be talking of “loans,” “merchants in spec
ulation and debt,” &c. &c. &c. while such
are the facts. The audacity of their impu
dence is rather novel to say the least.—
There are no bigger beggars on earth at
the banks than “the Government” just now.
If it were not for “bank notes” and “credit”
obtained of banks, the President would go
hungry to bed, if he had no other income
than his salary. Three millions in debt to
a bank ! ‘Divorce of Bank and State !”
“Unholy alliance !” Ay, the office of the
Receiver General ofthe chief commercial
city is in this very bank ! The deposites
there, too! This is the Sub-Treasury !
Ay, let the “Whig orators” pour into them
these facts, and arraign them on the tribu
nal of “the stump,” till they cease delusion
and humbug, or pay to principle a formal
and showy homage at the least.
GENERAL VAN BUREN.
The intelligent Virginian, who recently,
at a public festival, intended to compliment
the President, by giving as a toast—
“ Martin Van Buren: His services in
the Cabinet equal his achievements in the
Field
has been outdone. At a meeting of the
Germans, at Buffalo, (says the New York
Commercial,) favorable to the Administra
tion, a lew days ago, one of their orators
stated in his speech—
“ That during the battle of the Thames,
General Harrison was taken prisoner by
General Proctor, and that he was rescued by
General Van Buren, who commanded the re
serve ; one who, by a rapid and masterly
movement, advanced upon the enemy, retook
the General—changed the fortunes of the
day, and achieved a victory.”
What is still better, the assertion was re
ceived as gospel by the meeting. We
opine that even GENERAL VAN BU
REN will laugh at his own prowess on
that occasion.
From the Chronicle and Sentinel.
A SEVERE REBUKE.
Never have we seen a more withering
rebuke of the small game, which Locofo
coism is attempting to play off upon the
South, than is contained in the following
article, from the Philadelphia Sentinel, a
leading and zealous Van Buren organ in
that city. We commend it especially to
those Locofocos at the South, who have
been so industriously engaged in attempt
ing to make an impression upon the minds
ofihe Southern people, that the Whigs and
Abolitionists are identified. What say
yon, Corporal, will you dare to publish this
article from one of your own party organs,
that your readers may see the game which
you have been attempting to play off on
them ?
From the Philadelphia Sentinel.
William Pitt Fessenden, Esq. member
elect of Congress in Maine, is not, as we
are informed, and never has been an abo
litionist, but on the contrary has always
expressed his opposition to the principles of
that party.
We may as well take this occasion to
say that we have not been able to perceive
the truth and justice ofthe charge that the
whig and abolition parties of the north are
identical in their aims and efforts. We
have not seen the proof that the abolitionists
have any special affinity for either of the
great political parties, or any expectation
that the scheme of immediate emancipation
would be promoted by the success of one
or the other. Instances have occurred in
which candidates for office regularly nomi
nated have from their supposed leaning to
abolitionism received the suffrages of anti
slavery men ; but this has happened on
both sides, and has been a mere accident
in the history of politics. It is notorious
that the abolitionists as a body have no con
fidence in either the whig or administra
tion parties. This is openly and frequent
ly expressed through their presses and con
ventions, and in their nomination of candi
dates of their own for the Presidency and
Vice Presidency. We believe that after
the speech of Mr. Clay last winter in the
Senate, on the subject of slavery, the great
body ofthe abolitionists would have given
Mr. Van Buren their decided preference’
had the former gentleman been taken up
as the rival candidate ; and we do not sup
pose they have been materially conciliated
by the nomination of Gen. Harrison, since
in the event of the success of the whigs,
the doctrines of Mr. Clay will be sanction
ed and incorporated in the new administra
tion, of which he must be the hieropnant
and symbol.
As to raising the cry of abolitionism for
effect at the South, we must pause a little
and inquire what that effect may be, and
whether honest men and patriots can have
any hand in securing it. We may throw
odium upon our opponents, and consolidate
the South in support of Mr. Van Buren, by
such trickery. But is that the end of it ?
Is that the ultimate effect ? Is there no
danger of deepening and strengthening the
already too apparent jealousy between the
great Northern and Southern sections of
our beloved common country ? God knows
we have perplexing elements enough al
ready in our political problems, the great
est of which is diversity without disunion
—and let us beware, lest in attempting to
conquer a party, we blow up the Union.
Let it not be deemed impossible that the
South and North, now attempted to be ar
rayed against each other as parties, may,
ere long, come to be arrayed as nations, se
parate, independent and bitterly antago
nists.
The Richmond Enquirer, the leading
Van Buren paper of the South, said, a few
days ago :—“ NO MAN HAS PRO
NOUNCED HARRISON A COWARD,
WHOSE OPINION IS ENTITLED TO
RESPECT.”
From the Chronicle and Sentinel.
We have been politely furnished with
the following excellent letter, from Rev.
Mr. Mosely, in reply to an invitation exten
ded him by the Maridn county Whigs, to be
with them at their laie Barbecue. It is a
good letter, such a one as does honor to the
head and heart of the plain republican who
penned it.
Bear Creek, Henry co. Aug. 18.
Gentlemen :—Your kind favor of the
14th is before me, and I assure you it would
afford me great pleasure to comply with
the request it contains, and meet my fellow
citizens of Marion. But at present it is out j
of my power. lam “ Corresponding Mes
senger” to several associations and were I
to neglect my religious duties to attend to
political matters, it would give our oppo
nents an opportunity to assail me, with suc
cess. So long as I “ render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s’,’ I shall bid them defi
ance.
It is a matter of surprise to me that any
man, with the evidence before him contain—
ed in the history of our Government, as re
gards its rise, foundation, progress and un
exampled prosperity, should wish to sup
port a man that not only contemplates, but
is actually engaged in effecting, a change
in the system adopted by Washington and
Jefferson and Madison and Monroe—a sys
tem the value of which has been proved by
its successful operation ; for under it we
as a nation have risen from poverty
and wretchedness, to wealth, intelligence
and a degree of prosperity’ unexampled in
the history of the world. With the evi
dence before their eyes, that derangement,
distress and disorganization, have attended’
every step of the proposed change, we are
gravely told by our youthful politicians that .
tlie system of our government, as introdu
ced by those ancient worthies, was uncon
stitutional. If so, it follows, that those men
did not understand the very constitution
they aided in forming, else they were base
enough to swear to support it, and then dis
regard their oaths !
Is it not passing strange that Jackson
when Senator to Congress, did not discover
that the Bank and Credit System were un
constitutional, and though under all the
solemnities of an oath, he never did find
out that fact until he discovered that Nick
Biddle and other Bank officers would not
submit to his dictation. (I say the Bank
and Credit System because if you reduce
our circulation to gold and silver, I think I
hazard nothing in saying down goes the
credit system and with it the brightest pros
pects of all the poor young men ofthe coun
try.) But are we authorized to believe
that Jackson was since in his pretentions as
regards the unconstitutionally ofthe Bank?’
I think not. What does he say when he
vetoed the act re-chartering the bank ? In
substance, “if you had called on me, I
would have presented a plan that would
have met their exclusive approbation.”—
Now, some kind of a Bank was constitu
tional ; and if the dictator had been con
sulted, what sort of a Bank would it have
been, think you ? Why it would have
been a Bank without Nick Biddle at its
head—just such a one as Mr.. Van Buren
now wants, one over which the President
would have had control. It would have
been based on the treasury of the country
and been just what we now have, a gov
ernment Bank. Look at the Sub-Treasu
ry ! A hard money currency with a batchi
of treasury notes as a circulating medium.
The office holders and government eon
tractors will get the gold and! silver, and
sell it at ten to twenty per cent? profit for
banknotes, with which to pay poor men
who labor. The hard money wlfl soon all
find its way into the vaults ofthe- Indepen-*
dent Treasury, and there it wil® be inde
pendent sure enough, of’you and me and
all of us! Give him there his treasury notes
to hoard up or issue at pleasure, and 1 he
will control the prices<of property and wa
ges and’every thing, at his pleasure. Then
add his army of 200,000 Militia to all this,
and farewell to independence—farewell to
prosperity and liberty !
Gentlemen, E hope the freemen of
Geoirgia are not prepared! to bow down at
the footstool of any man who favors such
proceedings!
I know that by the aetive eourse I am
taking in this contest, I am bringing down
the execrations of many—some of my bre
thren have suffered it to interfere with their
feelings. But none of these feelings shall
move me ; I look upon it as a contest of li
berty against despotism'—of virtue against
vice—and neither do I hold my life dear
unto me so that I can finish my course with
joy, and perpetuate the liberties and insti
tutions of my country, so far as my efforts
can go, to the latest generations.
I am, gentlemen, with considerations of
great respect, your obedient servant.
WILLIAM MOSELEY.
To Messrs. William Wells, i h
Kitchen McKennry, > | “
John M. Minter. )3 H
PRACTICAL -VAN BURENISM IN ,
MAINE.
A correspondent ofthe New York Jour
nal of Commerce concludes a letter from
Hallowell, Me., with the followjng anec
dote of elections : ,
An incident occurred at the town elec
tion in Hallowell yesterday, which is wor
thy of note. A Locofoco, who has figured
in the Brandon Bank transactions in Missis
sippi, but who now resides in this town r
came up to the polls with a negro man r
whom he had brought with him from Mis
sissippi, and attempted to get in his vote
for the Van Buren Governor. He did not
pretend that he had emancipated his slave,.,
but contended that in this state he became
free by being brought here by his master. |
The Selectmen rather hesitated to admit “
the vote of the slaves, and the idea of free
men being.voted down by slaves created
so much excitement in the hall that the
democrat master and slave withdrew. In
conversation, the master said : “Simo is a.
true democrat—he will vote just as massa
says.” This is said to be the best defini
tion of Modem Democracy extant. They
will vote just as massa says.