Georgia statesman. (Milledgeville, Ga.) 1825-1827, August 29, 1826, Image 1

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GeorgiaS Statesman. rMS -$3 TER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE,] ME AC HAM. K THE ■ STATESMAN ■ bLihel i ovcry Tuesday in Milledgeville, ■' '' t}p-03itt the State-House Square. ■ firm!...- Three Dollars in advance, I iMr Dollars if net paid in six months.— ■ ’ subscription received for less than one ■ . ' uniesa the money is paid in advance, ■ no paper discontinued till all arrearages ■* inscription and advertisements are paid. ■ g Notice of the sales of land and ne bv Wministrdors, Executors, or Guar must be published sixty days previous ■ P the day of sale. . ■ The sale of personal property in like raan- H, r: must be published forty days previous to day of sale. . ■ Notice that application will be made to the Hr r t of Ordinary for leave to sell land, must ■ published nine months. I Notice that application has been made lor H'U. r= of Administration, must also be pub- H - ied forty days. ■ All letters directed to the Editor, on ■business relating to the Office, must be post- I" likOGIUBI lon JEFFERSON AND ADAMS, I Delivered to the Citizens of Savannah, I BT THE I HON. T. u. P. CHARLTON. I CoCSTRYMEN ! REPUBLICANS ! I Jefferson is dead ! the light which I gleamed from the beacon of Monti- I cello, irradiating the ways of our pa- I {riots, is extinguished forever. [ This mournful event, might have I been expected among the ordinary I accompanyments of nature’s march. I If the alarm bad been rung some I years ago, it would have struck more ■ painful upon our hearts than at this Itime, because our wishes, our hopes, lour anxieties, our calculations of the I contingencies of human life would I have flattered us with the hope of a I greater longevity ; still if he angel I cf death had executed his commis- I sion, we could only have said, “ the I father of the Republic has attained I to a fullness of years, and all thanks I and gratitude be given to the Al- I mighty for having p rmitted him so I long to live." We know my coun- I try men, that death is the terminus of I that port of destination, at which we I must all arrive—it is the haven into I which this barque of human exist- I ence, no matter how tossed, shat tered and dismantled by the tem pests of our passions, our vices, our crimes, must sooner or later be tow ed, there to lie tor repairs, at the mercy of God—or gliding tranquilly in, with no other injuries, than time may have inflicted, is safely and tri umphantly moored, amid the tears, the affection and plaudits of man kind. A death, thus honored, is more glorious than all the dazzling ener gies of active life, which fill this vain world with their grandeur and their tumults. We mourn not then that Jefferson is gone. Lamentations for that event, as an afflictive dispensa tion of Providence, would be to ar raign the goodness which has indulg ed our country with an extension of life, beyond that span usually allotted to man. No' Our sorrow' is erected upon a nobler and more rational founda tion. It is a sorrow which flows from the recollection that He, who stood first in the affections of our people; that He, toward whom all eyes were turned in perilous times ot public liberty—that He whose re sponses were those of an oracle with cut its ambiguity—that He, whose bem volent heart cherished with pa ternal fondness first, the children of this his own Republic, and then. x panded its benevolence to the whole human family—that He, who stood alone in asperationsto heaven for li berty and happiness to all mankind, aud by i,is acts opened the way to both— that He. this highly favored and gifted mortal is gone, lerving no cne behind imbued with a double Portion of his spirit—no one to take up the mantle which fell from him, in his assent to the bosom of his Cre ator. We grieve not that this patriarch’s hie has terminated. Jefferson “ liv ed that he might die, and died that be might live forever." The source of our affliction is, that "emay never look upon his like a |ain! but even this affliction is ab sorbed in the consolation, that the spirit of Jeff erson still walks, and will ever remain among us. In days of political tribulation—in days when faction shall have raised it s trest to deface or pull down one pil lar which upholds our beautiful and magnificent cathedral—in days when ambition, covered by the cloak of hypocrisy, shall impiously strive to crush with his iron heel, the sleeping, ’insuspi cting Genius of the Repub lic—then, my countrymen, will be seen the sabre of Washington, flash ing its appelling coruscations—con founding with its terrors, and menac ing with its vengeance, the villain, traitor, or desperate conspirator— and when the Father of his country, through th© influence of his heroic -pint shall have dispelled this storm, r ady to burst its thunders o’er your icads, then will descend the gentle philanthropic spirit of the Father of the Republic, again to bring back our misguided people to the paths of their duty, again to utter in its own affectionate accent, “ Ye are all brethren, all republicans” irxthe same pursuit of happiness, all the favorite sons of Freedom—banish then your discords, on which despots look with exultation, and smile with hope— imitate the heroism and disinterest edness of that spirit which led your fathers to victory, and which has just saved you from an impending dan ger —and, above all, cling to the in stitutions which have sprung out of the liberty promulgated in ’76, and among the blessings and mercies ye may invoke at heaven’s shrine, let the first and most fervent be " O God ! save the republic.” Listen, my countrymen, to the spi rit of Jefferson, and such will ever be its admonitions. I therefore re peat ; “he lived to die, and died, that he might live forever.” Ever verdant be the wreath which victory and liberty, with united bene dictions placed upon the bust of Washington—eternal be the grati tude, which this great democracy must manifest for the memory and services of a hero, who in the chron icles of the world, stands alone in having deserved the eviable appella tion of “ Father of his country.”— Still it must be conceded, my coun trymen, that the great moral cause which afforded the means to conquer that appellation, emanated from the mind and heart of Jefferson. The desideratum was, not the sim ple, isolated independence of our na tion. It might have taken a separate, distinct station among the powers of the earth—it might have thrown oil allegiance to the British King, and yet have acquired no essential bene fits by the revolution. This species of political independ ence was not the exclusive object of our statesmen and patriots. Tur key, Russia, China, Spain, Morocco, were, and are separate and distinct sovereignties—and yet despotism in each, dictates the rule of obedience, ignorance or bigotry the rule of faith. The population of these empires, and monarchies, and others of a sim milar character, enjoying the blessings of independence, composed of slaves, vassals, serfs, and subjects with no other rights than those which are gratuitously bestowed by their lords and masters. Without a total change then of government, onr independence would not have been worth a drop of blood shed in its achievement. The value of our independence was derived and derived entirely from its social or civil liberty, as contrasted with the political or exte rior liberty, common to every sov ereignty, assuming the rights and immunities of a distinct nation. To whom then, my countrymen, are we indebted for these lights, which illuminating and bursting through thi gloom which had obscured the intel lects of the wisest of the earth, sheti their hitherto concealed effulgence upon this hemisphere ? To the mind of Jefferson, who held them up in the “ Declaration of Independence,” of which he was the author, and to whose inspiration the glory of that charter is due. For the first time in the convul sive revolutions of the earth-*-aiid among all the efforts of human gen ius and benevolence to ameliorate the condition of man, were these written truths announced by him as the ordinance of nature :—“ that all men are created equal—that they are endowed by their Cr ator with cer tain unalienable rights; and that a mong these are, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Advert to those regions where the sun of liber ty first rose to warm the souls of their people, and to fill this world with the glory of their heroism, their institutions, their arts and their phi losophy ; advert to the classic re gions of Rome and Greece, we shall not find there, in theory or practice, the equality, our charter has included as a fundamental article in the code of nature, and of nature’s God. In the Roman system the Patrician aristocracy, was co-evil with the re public ; and expired only when Imperial despotism had levelled all or substituted higher distinctions. In Greece, the government of Pericles, or some other oligarch, with no bet ter pretensions to legitimate author ity, evinced, that perfect equality was a solicism in their turbulent de mocracies. It is in vain to look into the insti tutions of the modern world for the great truth, that “ all men are creat ed equal”—that the sovereign pow er resides in the people, and that Hz tibierunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.—Virgil. MILLEDGEVILLE, TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1826. governors were made for them, not they for the governors. The annunciation of that truth by Thomas Jefferson, laid the solid foun dations of our form of pohty, and as sociated with it as irresistable cor rollaries the imprescr.ptable rights of “ life, liberty and the pursuit of h ppiness.” Not for Independence alone then, did Washington and his heros march to battle—for that abstractedly con sidered, would have been too dearly bought with the blood and treasures of our fathers. The contest was for that civil liberty, which enters into all the relations of our lives, political, legal, religious and domestic—that liberty which is no respector of per sons, but opening the high places of the republic to every one, who can reach there by his virtue, his talents, or his patriotism—destroys the pre tensions of birth—which laughs to scorn the gewgaws, the distinctions and the honors of an hereditary King, and an hereditary nobility— which tramples under its feet the pride and tyranny of ecclesiastical hierarchy, which imposing burthens npon all, in proportion to their re spective means, equalizes the tribute which each has to pay in support of a government conferring upon each an efficient agency, and which lastly considering all men as equal, admin isters with inexorable impartiallity to the rich and to the poor. This is the civil, in contradistinc tion to mere political liberty, an nounced by the illustrious dead, in his “ Declaration of Ind pendence,” this liberty is the result of the war of the revolution, has since been in corporated into our constitution and jurisprudence—has placed this na tion upon that height upon which the Eternal himself must look with complacency—despots with fear and trembling; the oppressed and en lightened of the world, with joy and idmiration. With this view of a system, the el ments of which originated in, and sprung from the mind of Jefferson, was matured by the wisdom of his compeers, and achieved by the sword of Washington, is there an American citizen, native or adopted, that does not feel that he is not only the freest but the most dignified man upon earth 1 Who is there upon the face of the earth, who in a contrast with his condition, can quell his pride in the comparrison ? Take the King upon his throne, surrounded by the pageantry of roy alty, encompassed by the blaze of military explots, towards whom ob sequious courtiers and multitudes ea gerlay advance to how the knee or kiss the hand of majesty, who traces his genealogy back to a long train of ancestors ofhis dynasty, equally dis tinguished in deeds of blood, con quests and worldly splendor. A inidst this supposed consumation of human greatness and happiness, the genius of our republic, stations an American citizen, standing erect, the true image of his Creator, he feels no degradation in the presence of the monarch.—He feels that he sees be fore him only a man, and contemns the adoration that man expects as a God. He views with blended emo tions of pity, disgust and abhorance, the prostration of those noble and inherent attributes of character, given with the impartiality of divine justice to every individual of the hu man race, here groveling in the dust, chained, fettered, and subjugated by the debasing moral caus sos mon archical institutions and its privileg ed orders. Animated by the tutelary geniue beside him, he looks upon the scens with as composed an air, and a lofty deportment as th sovereign himself. Attracting attention, he is called to the presence and these enquiries ad dressed to him—Upon what authori ty do you assume this bearing ? What is your rank ? Upon what pretensions is your audacity founded ? I am a man, sir, the countryman of Wash-, ington, and Jefferson. My rank is one of the sovereign people, and as an apology for my alleged audacity, know that I have been brought hith er to witness the contrast which ex ists between the equality of freemen and the immcasurahledistance. which separates you and your nobility from the millions of your more virtuous subjects, and at the same time to communicate to you and all others wearing crowns, that the revolution of my country has replaced the writing on the wall, which the omnipotent disposer of events will, in his due season fulfil, end that as preparatory to that millenium, know also, there is added to the warning “ REBEL LION AGAINST TYRANTS, IS THE LAW OF GOD.” The genius snatches our country men from this Pandemonium and con veys him to the permanent residence of Liberty, on the highest peak of our Alleghany. She there, laying her hand upon his head, proclaims him one of natures kings and noble men, and as the patent of his high descent, delivers him the “ Declara tion of Independence.” Take this as an allegory my country men, yet truth lies at its foundation, and the American citizen is as this pre sentation exhibits him. How im mense then is the debt wc owe to the man thus elevating his fellow citizens above the people of other climes and to the compatriot* states man, who infused the soul of his in spiration into the body of our social compact. Sixty one years, a term which few of us exceeded in this probationary state, Mr. J fferson was occupied in public duties, and during all the tri als of that p rilous and tempestuous period, no one accredited imputation has sullied the fair and unspotted re putation acquired nqf only in his own country but throughout the civilized and enlightened communities of the world. He is emphatically called the philanthropist, the friend of mankind, the friend of the people. The details ofhis official life are the property of history, and will abundantly shew, the legitimate claims he has to the appellations bestowed upon him His administration in 1801, to the termination ofhis presidency was a practical illustration of the principles of “ 76” and “ per se (< standing alone, would not only challenge this testi mony of respect, from the whole of the present generation, but hallow it in the opinion of posterity. It is as foreign from my duty, as it is from my intention to awaken feel ings which ought to slumber on this occasion. The voice of eulogy is only raised to descant upon the vir tu sos the dead, not to enumerate imperfections over which these vir tues have thrown a mantle of oblivion Know nas a disciple of the Jefferon school, from the tenets of which the allurements of no temptations have, or will ever induce me to aberate, 1 w ould on any other occasion throw off restraints upon feelings which have advised me through life, never to compromise between my delicacy and my principles. But lam now speaking, and shall presently renew', the theme of the dead, and the man date I hear from the tomb is, ob serve, “charity, humility forbear ance.” I have endeavored to obey it, and shall continue to do so; in the remaining part of the duty I have to discharge. Fellow-Citizens! Before I take leave of Mr. Jefferson (as un connected with another father of the republic whose spirit has also taken its flight"to the “ ancient of days.”) I must repel an objection aimed once in bitter hostility against his charac ter and principles, and unfortunately for a time made a deep impression upon the minds ofhis pious country men. It is said, Mr. Jefferson was an infidel, that he rejected the Chris tian religion, and reposed his hopes of salvation and mercy upon the ab stractions of his philosophy. Political opponents—bigots out raged by his act for establishing religious freedom, gave currency to a calumny, as un founded as it was cruel and ungener ous. In the preamble of that act he reverently speaks of “ the holy au thor of our Religion, the Lord both of body and mind” and in his notes on Virginia we have the following pious apostrophe: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm ba sis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties ar of the gift of God.” Can these references of Mr. J fferson be other than to the Christian dispensation? The whole tenor ofhis meek and benevolent and useful life evinced the purity of his faith and the honesty of its convic tions. The great mind of Jefferson endowed as it was from above, and translated, as if by express permis sion to his Lord, “both of body and mind” at that very hour a Nation’s Jubilee had concentrated the honors of his earthly career—did not, could not have rejected the internal eviden ces of the Gospel. In the history of Christianity, my countrymen, (here I must acknowl edge some obligations to a foreign ec clesiastic*) nations commence and end, they pass with their customs their laws, their opinions, their scien ces, only one doctrine remains always believed, notwithstanding the inter est which the passions have not to believe it, always immoveable amidst this rapid and perpctusl movement, always attacked, and always justified, always sheltered from the charg s which centuries bring upon tho most solid institutions, the most accredit ed systems always the more astonish ing, and the more admired in propor tion as it is the more examined, the consolation of the poor and the sweet est hope of the rich, the Jh.f*is ofthe people, and the restraint of despots ; the rule of the power which it mude ♦AHi Mtnnuu. rates, and obedience which it sancti fies, the great charter of humanity, where eternal justice not willing that even crime should be without hope and without protection, stipulates for mercy in favor of repentance ; a doc trnie as simple as it is profound, as humble as it is high and magniificcnt, a doctrine which snbjugates the most powerful genius by its sublimity and proportions itself by the clear ness of its light to the most feeble in tellect : in fine, an indestructible doc trine which resists every thing, tri umphs over every thing, over vio lence and contempt, over sophisms and scaffolds, and powerful in its an tiquity, its victorious evidences and its benefits seems to reign over the human mind by right of birth, of con quest and of love. It is manifest from the recorded opinions of Mr Jefferson, that he as sented to this doctrine. His opposi tion was not to Christianity, but as he has expressed in perhaps the last production of his pen, to ‘ monkish ignorance and superstition.” He ad vocated the freedom of the mind, the worship of the Deity after every man’s own conscience, and in that consists, Ai icricaiis, the religious lib erty, without which your civil liberty would soon become the submissive ally of clerical domination, and then farewell to our equality, farewell to all the present and anticipated bles sings of representative democracy. Fellow Citizens, I must now di rect the current of your feelings to another Father of the Republic, whose spirit has also taken its flight to that house “not made with hands eternal in the heavens-’’John Adams, is dead! If your hearts, my country men, are fired with revolutionary recollections—if you value, as you do your lives and sacred honor the civil liberty I have feebly delineated —if your reverence the patriot, the members of that Amphyctionic coun cil of ”76, who fearlessly and trusting only to the Lord of Hosts and the virtue and courage of our people, threw down the gauntlet to the Brit ish Monarch, and declared this Re public free sovereign and independ ent, then honor and cherishthe mem ory of this enthusiast of the revolu tion this intrepid spirit, who una paled by the terrors of Treason and looking tyranny in the face, shouted “ Rebellion and Liberty,” His fervent soul did not satisfy itself with one manifestation of its overflowing zeal.—He was one of the Committee appointed by Con gress, to draft a Declaration of Inde- endence, and He, in a strain of Ro man eloquence called upon Congress no longer to delay, but to let that happy moment gitae birth to the A merican Republic, Mr. Adams se conded the motion, signed the immor tal manifesto, thus exhausting every proof of sincere devotedness to the cause he lisd advocated. Regardless of consequences, he gave the full weight ofhis civic cour age and personal disinterestedness, to the scale of our liberty and inde pendence, and with unabated ardor and consistency, down to the period which developed in the constitution of the United States the sacred prin ciples for which he had contended, and our warriors bled, he did w hat few had done before him — he encom passed the head of the civilian, with the laurels of the hero. The principles emanating from the mighty intellect of Jefferson, Adams put into operation, and look ing down the vista of time, his ener getic inind, warmed by the nascent freedom ofhis country saw' and pre dicted the future grandeur and glory of the Republic. Wrapt in the vis ion his patriotism had created, he at once gave an unrestrained flow to the sentiments it had inspired The Fourth of July will be, ought to be an anniversary for ever. On every re currence of it, bend the knee in thankfulness to Almighty God. Let your joy be manifested in the roar of artillery, the ringing of bells, by bon fires, games, illuminations, ye cannot exceed in these indications, the hon ors due to the merited triumphs of the day. Thus the Patriot poured forth his enthusiasm over the new born emancipation which he hoped was to last forever. The details of his administration as chief magistrate of these United States, are also the property ofthe historian. At that period in the day spring oflife, em erging from collegiate discipline, fill ed with the sentiments of the Roman and Grecian schools, and the princi ples of our Revolution, I was not a rnong those who chuuutcd hosannas, to this once great Apostle of Liberty, but in common w ith the considerate and magnanimous of my political per suasions, I have never ceased to venerate and admire Mr. Adams in in his retirement. Leaving his meas ures at the disposal ofthe public opin on, he there abandoned all individu al solicitude about them. He there [OR $4 IF NOT PAID IN SIX MONTHS. NO. 36.. ..V0L. I. encouraged no movement of faction evinced no inclination for prosleytism —put forth no public sentiments of obstruction or animadversion on the conduct or measures ofhis success ors, but satisfied as it would seem, with retrospection of those services which contributed to bestow liberty and happiness upon his country, he wished only to be known as the Sage of Quincy,—sufficiently honored and graified with the passing compli ments of the stranger, or the gratula tions of his neighbors and fellow citi zens : —sufficiently honored and gra tified with their comment, “ their lives a patriot of ’ 76 ; a signer of th© Declaration of Independedce.” This my countrymen is true great ness, this is philosophy, this is Chris tianity, this is patriotism- It is tha stern republicanism of Fabricius, as sociated with the unassuming virtue of Cincinnatus. Need I add more to his eulogy, ought I, can I utter another senti ment auxiliary to the tribut your hearts are now paying to those nobler spirits of the Revolution? It is un necessary, for a concurrence of ©vents: as wonderful as they appear to have been directed by an order from on high has tilled up every measure oi ho norevenifthese ceremonies had been omitted i had my lips been closed. On the 50th anniversary of Inde pendence the so ils of these illustri ous men, are called to their Maker. It has been said, and I repeat it, “ if chariots of fire had descended their translation could not have been more glorious.” The wish of Jefferson was that he might live to breath the air of the Jubilee.—On the morning of that day, the patriarch of Quincy hearing the thunder of artillery and the merry peels of bells, enquired the cause of the rejoicing and being informed it was the 4th of July, ex claimed with his ’76 animation “ it is a glorious day. God bless it ! God bless you all ! Independence for ever!” Thus carrying tin ruling passion of each into the last moments of this world’s existence. The Almighty interposes his spe cial mercy and goodness when he sees fit to do so ; and it would ap pear to our blind and imperfect con jectures, that these illustrious men; had by the special permission of his providence lived to that very hour, when ni the midst of the acclama tion of a people they had made free, great and happy ; their spirits should wing their way together to the ever lasting mansion prepard for them, to that God, under whose guidance and protection they had built upon a rock, the temple of our Liber'y. This being the almost obvious manifestation ofhis will, are we not justified in the belief that these vir tuous dead wore among his elect— that if in the collisions of human er rors and opinions one of these spirits had for a few years in a protracted life, wandered, in the opinions of u majority of his countrymen, from the principles consecrated by the strug gles of the revolution, and that if such transgressions had been en registerd inthe chancery of Heaven, the recording Angels had then been commanded “ to drop a tear upon and cancel them forever,” Fellow Citize.ms ! The conclu sion to which I was arriving, is post poned by a messenger now descen ding to bless you, and to honor the dead. If not seen by you, the vision is present to my mind’s eye, in all its beauty and loveliness ; and perhaps lam thus favored from som senti ment I may have unconscously utter ed operating as an invocation. Lacies ! fair Countrywomen ! it is a female and such should be the personification of every virtue upon which is suspended the happiness of man. Ye are stars of the night, ye are gems of the morn ; Ye are dew drops ; whose lustre illumine th« thorn ; And rayless that night is, that morning un blest When no beam from your eye, light up peace in the breast. I will attempt to describ her cos tume —For more than twenty three hundred years it has received no change amidst all the mutations and revolutions of fashion, and though it may not be graceful in your eyes, yet to the taste of the patriot, though all ages, it has appeared ever splendid ever becoming. The form of this being expanded by nature in all her beautiful sym metry and proportions, is enveloped by a robe of snowy whiteness. Her cestus is the emeralds hue, clasped by a diamond, brilliant as a fixed star. From her left shoulder floats an-azure mantle gently agitated by the zephyrs. Her auburn tresses, clustering and luxuriant are encir cled by the “ bonnet rouge.” Her feet and arms are bare, scarcely dis tinguishable in whiteness from her robe of scovr llcr dark bluo eye.