° "^o' .^^ %■ ^^^ J ■iV - ^^^ ^^/> ^^ cS Xi <. Z/ / t. ^ ^ -^^ ^^^ - ^'-'.s^^ _^ ^ / . ^ "^ ''r .^.:?^ .s'^ -i^. .0' lV V „ ■< » -0 ^ -^>r<^= ^Q, ^^rs^\^ ^^ <. y A ^' ^ c o ^ § .V .^ L^- ^ o,. - ^ c 7 - ^^ % >Va,*^c %. 0^ ^ #' r<* ^^^°- 0-. '' o c C .o^\ <5 -i -^ f. '^ ° "^d^ ^^ ^t y V Si- ^ ■* / -^ '^■-^-s\^ ,^ ^-- V N^ V K^ ^ ; <. ^ ^ '^^o^ Q,, ", "'^•V v^ .^ N^ v^ .^" ^- — ... « ■' .v -fl ',r^'' -• .sy 'd^ '<><( K' <. 1 " o '^■l ,01; '•r^-e. ' O 6 ^ •0- Vi o \ * .r(\ L.0 ^ aU CP^. O^' « ' ■■ " ' <. % 6>- A^' <. ^^. .^ '^> W "^o^ : '/ V x^- ,^^ o.. 'c V ^ \ * \ ^v ^. "^o '-f. ■S y^*. :l .^ \' ■^. ^ # ^ 0^ ^ <:.'^' A «r ^ ^o ^ V' <^. *^ \^^' :^ vv ^- --isy^^"'' N ■O.l ^ V * C o- -1 * <. ''/ % rO' lO^ 9^. A o. I O- \ V \^ .^ "'fl > •* .r> h ^ ^ " " ^ '% o ^*^ '/•.\'^~' .j< * r <^ . / ^ ;, ^ . ^^ ^ \> ^ ^ * o ^ <-/^ •0^' * ^ • " / ^' -^^ ^ ^. ^v ^^ A COLLECTION OF THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF WILLIAM LEGGETT, SELECTED AND ARRANGED, WITH A PREFACE, BT THEODORE SEDGWICK, Jr IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. NEW -YORK: TAYLOR & DODD. 1840. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, BY W. C. BRYANT, In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New- York. H. liUDWIO, PRlNTERt TC, Vesey-street, N. Y. ^^ al^," ■ ^"^ «7i A COLLECTION OF THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OP WILLIAM LEGGETT CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. [From the Evening Post, July 28, 1835.] "We perceive with pleasure that public and spontane- ous demonstrations of respect for the character and talents of the late Judge Marshall have taken place in every part of the country where the tidings of his death have been received. These tributes to the memory of departed excellence have a most salutary effect on the living ; and few men have existed in our republic who so entirely de- served tOfbe thus distinguished as examples, by a uni- versal expression of sorrow at their death, as he whose loss the nation now laments. Possessed of a vast heredi- tary fortune, he had none of the foolish ostentation or arrogance which are the usual companions of wealth.' Occupying an office too potent — lifted too high above the influence of popular will — there was no man who in his private intercourse and habits, exhibited a more 4 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF general and equal regard for the people. He was accesi- ble to men of all degrees, and " familiar, but by no means vulgar" in his bearing, he was distinguished as much in the retired walks of life by his unaffected simplicity and kindness, as in public by the exercise of his great talents and acquirements. The death of such a man, of great wisdom and worth, whose whole life has been passed in the public service, and whose history is interwoven with that of our country in some of its brightest and most interesting passages, furnishes a proper occasion for the expression of general respect and regret. In these sentiments we most fully join ; but at the same time we cannot so far lose sight of those great principles of government which we con- sider essential to the permanent prosperity of man, as to neglect the occasion offered by the death of Judge Mar- shall to express our satisfaction that the enormous powers of the Supreme tribunal of the country will no longer be exercised by one whose cardinal maxim in politics incul- cated distrust of popular intelligence and virtue, and whose constant object, in the decision of all constitutional questions, was to strengthen government at the expense of the people's rights. The hackneyed phrase, de mortuis nil nisi honum, must be of comprehensive meaning indeed, if it is intended that the grave shall effectually shelter the theoretic opin- ions and official conduct of men from animadversion, as well as the foibles and offences of their private lives. In this sense at least we do not understand the precept, and if such were its obvious purport we should refuse to make it our law. Paramount considerations seemed to us to demand that, in recording the death of Judge Marshall, and joining our voice to that of general eulogy on his clear and venerable name, we should at the same time record our rooted hostility to the political principles he WILLIAM LEGGETT. 5 maintained, and for the advancement of which he was able to do so much in his great office. Few things have ever given us more disgust than the fawning, hypocritical and unqualified lamentations, which are poured out by the public press on the demise of any conspicuous political opponent. Of the man whom the day before it denounced in terms of the moat unmeasured bitterness, let him but shuffle off his mortal coil, and the next day it is loud in undiscriminating, unlimited praise. We would not have journalists wage their political dissen- tions over the grave, and pour the ebullitions of party hostility on the dull cold ear of death. Neither would we have them stand aloof in dogged silence, refusing to join in the tribute to the memory of a great man who had made his exit from this theatre of perpetual strife, be- cause, while he lived, they were found in the ranks of his opponents. But if there is any sincerity in the politi- cal doctrines they profess ; if they are not mere jugglers in a game of cheatery and fraud ; if they are really con- tending, with their whole heart and soul, in behalf of certain great principles, the success of which tliey consider of vital importance to the best interests of man i then not even the death of an opponent — and more especially of one whose mind was so vigorous and en- lightened, whose heart was so benignant, and whose whole life had been so pure and exemplary as that of Judge Marshall — not even the death of such an opponent, we say, should restrain them from accompanying their tri- bute of respect with an expression of dissent from his political opinions. There is no journalist who entertained a truer respect for the virtues of Judge Marshall than ourselves ; there is none who believed more fully in the ardour of his pa- triotism, or the sincerity of his political faith. But according to our firm opinion, the articles of hia creed, 1* 6 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF if carried into practise, would prove destructive of the great principle of human liberty, and compel the many to yield obedience to the few. The principles of govern- ment entertained by Marshall were the same as those professed by Hamilton, and not widely different from those of the eider Adams. That both these illustrious men, as well as Marshall, were sincere lovers of their country, and sought to effect, through the means of gov- ernment, the greatest practicable amount of human happi- ness and prosperity, we do not entertain, we never have entertained a doubt. Nor do we doubt that among those who uphold the divine right of kings, and wish to see a titled aristocracy and hierarchy established, there are also very many solely animated by a desire to have a government established adequate to self-preservation and the protection of the people. Yet if one holding a po- litical creed of this kind, and who, in the exercise of high official functions, had done all in his power to change the character of the government from popular to monarchical, should be suddenly cut off by death, would it be unjustifiable in those who deprecated his opinions to allude to them and their tendency, while paying a just tribute to his intellectual and moral worth ? Should General Jackson descend into the grave to- morrow, with what propriety could they who denounce him as a tyrant and usurper join their voices to swell the loud note of unmingled eulogium ? They might with perfect propriety speak of his honesty of purpose, his bravery and firmness ; but they could extend their praise to other topics only by giving the lie to their previous accusations. If they have been honest in representing him as violating the Constitution and trampling on the laws ; if they really believe that he has siezed the sword and purse, and has done all in his power to change the Govern- ment into an autocracy ; the paramount duties of patriot- WILLIAM LEGGETT, 7 ism, rising superior to the mere suggestions of sympathy, would seize the death of such a man as an occasion of adverting to the true character of his principles of action, and of rousing the people from the delusion into which they had fallen. Of Judge Marshall's spotless purity of life, of his many estimable qualities of heart, and of the powers of his mind, we record our hearty tribute of admiration. But sin- cerely believing that the principles of democracy are iden- tical with the principles of human liberty, we cannot but experience joy that the chief place in the supreme tribunal of the Union will no longer be filled by a man whose political doctrines led him always to pronounce such decision of Constitutional questions as was calcula- ten to strengthen government at the expense of the peo< pie. We lament the death of a good and exemplary man, but we cannot grieve that the cause of aristocracy lias lost one of its chief supports. THE ABOLITIONISTS. [From the Evening Post of August 8, 1835.] In looking over the English papers received this morn- ing, we were struck with the following remarks in the London Courier of the 7th ultimo : " Oar readers will undoubtedly recollect that within these few yea.rs societies have existed in London and lectures have been given for the purpose of attacking Christianity. A gentleman known by the name of Ro- bert Taylor, who, we must charitably suppose, was out of his senses, took to himself the name, we believe, of the Devil's Chaplain, and in that character was accustomed to address his audience. Some of his followers or friends, or persons who embraced opinions similar to his, under- 8 POLITICAL WEITINGS OF took to lecture in the provinces on the same subject, and the Clergy of the English Church were, in several places, and on several occasions, both by him and them, chal- lenged to meet and justify or defend the doctrines they taught. Among all reasonable people there was but one opinion as to the indecency of the proceedings of Messrs. Taylor and Co., and there was, we believe, but one opin- ion as to the propriety of the conduct of the Clergy, who took no notice of the challengers and their assertions. The proper contempt thus exhibited by the Clergy and the good sense of society, have completely put an end to these proceedings. The public now never hear of Mr. Robert Taylor and his friends, and seem not to care what has become of them." In the above paragraph we have the course pointed out which ought to have been pursued in this country in relation to the fanatical doctrines and proceedings of the immediate abolitionists. It is our firm persuasion, as we have often had occasion to state, that the rapid growth and greatly augmented ardour of the association known by that name are in a very large degree ascribable to the unwise and unjust measures taken to suppress it. If they had been suffered to pour out their zeal unopposed ; if their wild doctrines had not been noticed, or, if noticed at all, only with calm and temperate arguments, we feel satisfied that at this day that sect of political fanatics would have embraced much fewer persons that it now numbers, and would have exhibited far less zeal than now characterises its efl^brts. All history, all experience sup. ports the opinion we express. We defy any man to point to a single instance in which fanaticism has been turned from its object by per- secution, or in which its ardour has not been inflamed and its strength increased when opposed by arguments of brute force. On the contrary, history contains many WILLIAM LEGGETT. 9i striking cases of fanatical enterprises languishing and being abandoned, when those engaged in them were suf- fered to take their own course, without any other hin- derance than such as was necessary to prevent their over- leaping the safeguards of society. Fanaticism is a species of insanity and requires ana- logous treatment. In regard to both, the soothing sys- tem is proved by its results to be the most effectual. The mind slightly touched with lunacy, may soon be ex- asperated into frenzy by opposition, or soon restored to perfect sanity by gentle and assuasive means. So, too, the mind, excited to fanaticism on any particular subject, religious, political, or philanthropic, is but heated to moret dangerous fervour by violence, when it might easily be reduced to the temperature of health by the lenitives which reason and moderation should apply. The first great impulse which the abolition cause re- ceived in this city was, we are persuaded, the attempt to suppress it by the means of mobs ; and the greatest pro- moters of the abolition doctrines have been, in our judg- ment, not Thompson nor Garrison, but the Courier and Enquirer, the Journal of Commerce and the Commercial Advertiser. We do not speak this in a spirit of crimi- nation ; for our desire is to assuage and conciliate, not to inflame and exasperate. We express the opinion more with a view to its influence on future conduct, than to reprehend that which is past ; and we do hope that, in view of the pernicious consequences which have flow- ed from violent measures hitherto, a course more consist- ent with the meekness of Christianity, and with the sa- cred rights of free discussion, will be pursued henceforth. While we believe most fully that the abolitionists are justly chargeable with fanaticism, we consider it worse than folly to misrepresent their character in other res- pects. They are not knaves nor fools, but men of wealth, 10 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF education, respectability and intelligence, misguided on a single subject, but actuated by a sincere desire to pro- mote the welfare of their kind. This, it will hardly be denied, is a true description, of at least a large propor- tion of those termed abolitionists. Is it not apparent on the face of the matter, that invective, denunciations, burnings in effigy, mob violence, and the like proceed- ings, do not constitute the proper mode of changing the opinions or conduct of such men ? The true way is, either to point out their error by temperate arguments, or better still leave them to discover it themselves. The fire, unsupplied with fuel, soon flickers and goes out, which stirred and fed, will rise to a fearful conflagration, and destroy whatever falls within the reach of its fury. With regard to the outrage lately committed in Charles- ton, we do not believe it constitutes any exception to our remarks. The effects of all such proceedings must be to increase the zeal of fanaticism, which always rises in proportion to the violence of the opposition it encoun- ters. Some of the Charleston papers, we perceived, spoke of the attack on the Post Office as premature, and thought it ought not to have been made until the result was received of an application which had been forwarded to the General Post Office for relief. Neither the Gen- eral Post Office, nor the General Government itself, pos- sesses any power to prohibit the transportation by mail of abolition tracts. On the contrary it is the bounden duty of the Government to protect the abolitionists in their constitutional right of free discussion ; and opposed, sincerely and zealously as we are, to their doctrines and practise, we should be still more opposed to any infringe- ment of their political or civil rights. If the Govern- ment once begins to discriminate as to what is orthodox and what heterodox in opinion, what is safe and what is WILLIAM LEGGETT. %! unsafe in its tendency, farewell, a long farewell to our freedom. The true course to be pursued, in order to protect the South as far as practicable, and yet not violate the great principle of equal freedom, is to revise the post-office laws, and establish the rates of postage on a more just gradation — on some system more equal in its operation and more consonant with the doctrines of economic science. The pretext under which a large part of the matters sent by mail are now sent free of postage — either positively or comparatively — is wholly unsound. " To encourage the diffusion of knowledge " is a very good object in itself; but Government has no right to extend this encouragement to one at the expense of another. Newspapers, pamphlets, commercial and religious tracts, and all sorts of printed documents, as well as letters, ought to pay postage, and all ought to pay it according to the graduation of some just and equal rule. If such a system were once established, making the postage in all cases payable in advance, with duplicate postage on those letters and papers which should be returned, not only the flood of abolition pamphlets would be stayed, but the circulation of a vast deal of harmful trash at the pub- lic expense would be prevented, creating a vacuum which would naturally be filled with matters of a better stamp. 12 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF MR. KENDALL'S LETTER. [From the Evening Post, August 12, 1835.] The following letter has been addressed by the Post Master General to the Post Master at Richmond, en- closing a copy of his letter to the Post Master at Charles- ton, South Carolina. " Post Office Department, ^ 5th August 1835. \ Sir : My views in relation to the subject of your letter of the 3d inst. may be learnt from the enclosed copy of a letter to the Post Master at Charleston, S. C, dated 4th inst. Very respectfully, Your obt. servant, AMOS KENDALL. Edm'd. Anderson, Ass't. P. M. Richmond, Va. Post Office Department, ) August 4th, 1835. \ P. M. Charleston, S. C. Sir : In your letter of the 29th ult. just received, you inform me that by the steamboat mail from New-York your office had been filled with pamphlets and tracts upon slavery : that the public mind was highly excited upon the subject, that you doubted the safety of the mail itself out of your possession : that you had deter- mined, as the wisest course, to detain these papers : and you now ask instructions from the Department. Upon a careful examination of the law, I am satisfied that the Postmaster General has no legal authority to exclude newspapers from the mail, nor prohibit their carriage or delivery on account of their character or ten- dency, real or supposed. Probably it was not thought WILLIAM LEGGKTT. 13 safe to confer on the head of an executive department a power over the press, which might be perverted and abused. *' But I am not prepared to direct you to forward or de- liver the papers of which you speak. The Post Office Department was created to serve the people of each and all of the United States, and not to be used as the instru- ment of their destruction. None of the papers detained have been forwarded to me, and I cannot judge for my- self of their character and tendency ; but you inform me that they are, in character, " the most inflammatory and incendiary — and insurrectionary in the highest degree." By no act, or direction of mine, oflicial or private, could I be induced to aid, knowingly, in giving circula- tion to papers of this description, directly, or indirectly. We owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the communities in which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them. Entertaining these views I cannot sanction, and will not condemn the step you have taken. « Your justification must be looked for in the character of the papers detained, and the circumstances by which you are surrounded." In giving place to the above letter, we cannot refrain from accompanying it with an expression of our surprise and resret that Mr. Kendall, in an official communication, should have expressed such sentiments as this extraordi- nary letter contains. If, according to his ideas of the du- ties of patriotism, every postmaster, may constitute him- self a judge of the laws, and suspend their operation whenever, in his supreme discretion, it shall seem proper, we trust Mr. Kendall may be permitted to retire from a post where such opinions have extensive influence, and enjoy his notions of patriotism in a private station. A pretty thing it is to be sure, when the head oflicer of tho Vol. II.— 2 14 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP Post Office establishment of the United States, and a member, ex officio, of the Administration of the General Government, while he confesses in one breath that he has no legal power to prevent the carriage or delivery of any newspaper, whatever be the nature of its con- tents, declares in the very next, that by no act of his will he aid, directly or indirectly, in circulating publications of an incendiary and inflammatory character. Who gives him a right to judge of what is incendiary and inflammatory? Was there any reservation of that sort in his oath of office 1 Mr. Kendall has not met the question presented by recent occurrences at the South, as boldly and manfully as we should have supposed he would. He has quailed in the discharge of his duty. He has truckled to the domineering pretensions of the slave-holders. In the tre- pidation occasioned by his embarrassing position, he has lost sight of the noble maxim, jiat justitia mat ccdum. The course which, by neither sanctioning nor condemning the unlawful conduct of the postmaster at Charleston, he has virtually authorized him and the other postmasters at the South to pursue, is neither more nor less than practical nullification. It is worse than that ; it is esta- blishing a censorship of the press, in its worst possible form, by allowing every two-penny postmaster through the country to be judge of what species of intelligence it is proper to circulate, and what to withhold from the people. A less evil than this drew forth, in former days, the Areopagitica from the master mind of Milton ; but we little dreamed that new arguments in favour of the freedom of speech and of the press would ever become necessary in our country. We are sorry to say that this letter of Mr. Kendall has materially diminished the very high respect we have WILLIAM LEGGETT. 15 heretofore entertained for him. It shows a deficiency of ' courage and independence which we did not expect to see him betray. THE POSTMASTER GENERAL. [From the Evening Post, August 14, 1835.] We pubUsh the communication signed Justice, in re- lation to the late extraordinary letter of the Post Master General, because we are friends of free discussion, and not because we by any means agree with the sentiments of the writer. The remarks with which we accompanied Mr. Kendall's letters were written after more reflection on the nature and tendency of the views expressed in that document, that we are fain to believe Mr. Kendall himself bestowed on the subject on which he expressed such strange opinions ; for the only extenuation we can find for that individual is that he wrote in haste, under the influence of trepidation or e!xcited feeling. We will not suppose that to curry favour with the south was any part of his motive, for we have too high a respect for his character willingly to admit the idea that he would sacri- fice justice for the sake of popularity. The position assumed by our correspondent that the Postmaster General was obliged to choose between two evils is not tenable. He was not placed between the horns of a dilemma. His duty was single, simple, and positive, and ought to have been performed openly and promptly, without any paltering, shrinking, or evasion. He was not required to assent to an interruption either of the whole mail or a part. His refusal to permit a certain portion of the contents of the mail to be culled out and detained or destroyed, might very possibly, and for the sake of the argument we are willing to say very 16 POLITICALWRITINGS OP certainly, lead to the forcible interruption of the whole ; but for this he would be in no degree accountable, provi- ded all means which the law places at his disposal had been duly employed to prevent such a result. Suppose the postmaster at Charleston, or some other place, should inform the Post Master General that an organized band of robbers, of great numerical strength, had given notice of their intention, unless certain letters containing money were delivered up to them, to waylay the mail and de- stroy its whole contents : here would be " a strange alter- native presented for Mr. Kendall's prompt selection," yet not stranger than the one which has occurred, and obviously not t6 be decided upon different principles. Would our correspondent justify him, in such a case, for choosing the lesser of two evils, and permitting the mo- ney-letters to be given up in order to save the rest of the mail ? The difference between us, on the point in dis- pute, is, that Mr. Kendall was not called upon to choose between evils, but was imperatively called upon to do his duty, and, as far as practicable, to see that those under him did theirs, leaving any violations of public law and order which might ensue to the investigation and punish- ment of the proper tribunals. Our correspondent does not see, as we do, in the doc^ trines of Mr. Kendall's letter, a justification of a most intolerable species of censorship of the press. It is true, the authorizing of every village postmaster to decide what may, and what may not be circulated, by the public mail, through his district of country, does not prevent any body from printing his sentiments, on any subject, just as if there were not ten thousand such self-constitut- ed supervisors of the press. But the publisher of a news- paper who finds himself denied the facilities of the mail is almost as much interdicted from the circulation of his opinions, as if he were denied the use of presses or types. WILLIAM LEGGETT. 17 The mail is the great means of disseminating publica- tions in the newspaper or pamphlet form, and every citi- zen has an equal right to its facilities. Not a mail is carried between any two given points on the whole map of our country which does not convey matters to the cir- culation of which, by themselves, we should be sorry to contribute. Yet the individual who should refuse to pay his proportion of the tax, even supposing it a specific one, which constituted the means of defraying the post-office expenses, on the ground of his hostility to the principles avowed in any portion of the publications carried by mail, would be guilty of nullification in its worst possible form. Should Congress undertake to discriminate, by law, between the different kinds of publications which may be carried by mail, permitting some to be circulated through that medium on the ground of their being sober and or- derly, and prohibiting others as violent and inflamma- tory — should Congress ever assert such powers and exer- cise such legislation, and the public submit, not merely will our liberties be destroyed, but the very principle of freedom be extinct within us. Our post-office system, as we have before, on different occasions, admitted, is very bad, and ought to be amend- ed. Indeed, we have expressed the opinion, as doubtless many of our readers recollect — an opinion which event after event but serves to confirm more and more strongly — that it would have been well for this country if the power to establish post-offices and post-routes had never been given to the Government, but left entirely, as a mat. ter of trade, to be regulated by the laws of trade — left to the regulation of the same principles which furnish us with such admirable facilities for the transportation of our persons and packages from place to place, and would 2* IS POLITICAL WRITINGS OF have done no less for us in respect to our letters, circu- lars, and newspapers. But as this is a theoretical question, it may be out of season to discuss it in the present connexion. Yet, in the reformation of the post-office department, it would be well to conform it as nearly as possible to free-trade prin- ciples. The tax of postage, like all other taxes, ought to fall equally on the community ; not as now, the seaboard be made to pay for the interior, and letter-writers for the carriage of newspapers, handbills and pamphlets. With these hasty remarks, we submit the views of our correspondent to our readers. Though we ourselves feel constrained to take ground against the sentiments of Mr. Kendall's epistle, our correspondent may console himself with the assurance that our example is not likely to be extensively imitated. The opposition papers in this quarter are too anxious to conciliate the good will of the South, and turn the slave question into a weapon against their political adversaries, to find any fault with views which will be so highly relished as those of Mr. Kendall in the slave states. On our side, equally timid and disingenuous sentiments will prevail. The Times dare not speak out for itself on the present, or any other question requiring the least boldness of character ; and the Albany Argus which came to hand this morning i3 profuse in expressions of admiration of ".the prompt, liberal and just reply of the Postmaster General," consid- ering his view of the subject as " the only one that could be taken,'' and avowing the utmost confidence that such will be "the general opinion.''' Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart, and the whole pack, will yelp responsive to the bark of the leading hound, and a din will instantly be raised in eulogy of the Postmaster General more than sufficient to drown our feeble voice. WILLIAM LEGGETT. 19 TWO-PENNY POSTMASTERS. [From the Evening Post, August 15, 1835.] We give below the correspondence of one of the " two- penny postmasters " who think with Mr. Kendall, that they owe a higher obligation to the community in which they live than to the laws ; or, in other words, that it is of more consequence to play amiable to the south and truckle to its arrogant pretensions, than to obey their oath of office and perform the solemn duties of their station. We may expect to see many patriots now, in quarters which have not been suspected of abounding with patri- otism ; since, according to the doctrines of the Postmaster General, all that is required to constitute one a Sydney or a Hampden is to nullify the laws. We were aware that nuUification never had any terrors for Mr. Gouverneur, and he has made this obvious enough now by the extraordinary eagerness he has man- ifested to play the nuUifier and foist himself before the community in that character. We cannot, of course, suspect so pure a man of any intention in this matter of creating a southern interest in his favour, and of obtain- ing southern influence to strengthen the feeble tenure by which he is said to hold his office. He is quite disinte- rested in the course, no doubt ! He pursues it solely be- cause it is pointed out by duty ; because it is incumbent on patriotism to disobey the laws. We must pause here, lest Mr. Gouverneur's patriotism should next object to our own journal, and cause him to take the responsibility of refusing to forward it by mail. Should he do so, how- ever, we promise to bring his patriotism to the touchstone of the laws, and give him an opportunity of ascertaining whether a New-York jury approve this new species of nullification, which erects every hot-headed and intem- 20 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP perate postmaster into a Censor of the Press, and autho- rises him to decide what newspapers may be circulated and what not. With these remarks we submit the correspondence referred to. POST OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE. Copy of a letter addressed to the President and Direc- tors of the American Anti-Slavery Society, by S. L. Gouverneur. "Gentlemen — I have received a letter from the Post- master at Charleston, of which the enclosed is a copy. I have transmitted another to the Postmaster General. *' Entertaining full confidence that you will duly appre- ciate my sincere desire to reconcile a just discharge of my official duties with all the delicate considerations which are in the case presented to me, I have respectfully to propose to you that the transmission of the papers re» ferred to be suspended, until the views of the Postmaster General shall have been received. " With great respect, &c. (Signed,) *'SAM'L. L. GOUVERNEUR." " Sam'l. L. Gouverneur, Esq. li Sir — Your communication addressed to 'the President and Directors of the American Anti-Slavery Society,' has been handed me by Mr. Bates, and shall be laid be- fore the Executive Committee. " I am, respectfully, " Your obedient servant, "ARTHUR TAPPAN, "President A. A. S. Society." "New-York, Aug. 7,1835." WILLIAM LEGCETT. 21 "Anti-Slavery Office, > New-York, 8th Aug. 1835. ^ *' Sam'l. L. Gouverneur, Esq. P. M. New-York. " Dear Sir — Your favour of yesterday, covering a letter from the Postmaster of Charleston, in regard to the recent violation of the United States mail in that place, and proposing to us to suspend the transmission of our publi- cations until the views of the Post Master General shall be received, has been laid before the Executive Commit- tee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and I am in- structed, very respectfully, to transmit to you the follow, ing reply, viz : " ' Resolved, That while we are desirous to relieve pub- lic officers from any unnecessary difficulties and respon- sibilities, we cannot consent to surrender any of the rights or privileges, which we possess in common with our fel- low-citizens, in regard to the use of the United States mail.' " With much respect, your obedient servant, •'E. WRIGHT, Jr. " Sec. Dom. Cor. Am. A. S. Society." «To the President and Directors of the American Anti- Slavery Society. " Gentlemen— I have the honour to acknowledge the re- ceipt of your letter of yesterday, covering a copy of a resolution of certain persons described as ' the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.' " Early on the morning of the 7th inst., I addressed a communication to you, enclosing a copy of one which I received from the Postmaster at Charleston. Referring you to the peculiarly delicate considerations which were involved in the case he presented, I respectfully propos- ed to you to suspend the transmission of your papers 22 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF until the views of the Postmaster General, before whom the whole subject has been laid, could be received. This communication having been delivered to you by Mr. Bates, Assistant Postmaster, I received a verbal assur- ance that you would cheerfully comply with the proposi- tion I had made. In full assurance that this proposition would not be changed, I gave the necessary instructions to separate the papers referred to, in making up the mail for that portion of the country, and retain them at this office. The resolution to which I have referred, gave me the first intimation of the change of your views ; and was received at this office about the time of closing the mail. It was, therefore, too late in fact, to cause a dif- ferent disposition to be made of these papers. They were accordingly retained here in pursuance of the origi- nal understanding with you, nor will they be transmitted by mail until the instructions of the Postmaster General shall have been received. " Having thus placed you in possession of the facts, I beg leave to refer more distinctly to the resolution of your committee. My views have been much mistaken, if it is intended to imply that I required relief at your hands from * any difficulty or responsibility,' whatever, as 'a pubHc officer.' Had you declined, in the first instance, the proposition I had offi^red, my determination would have been promptly announced to you. Placed as I was, in a peculiarly delicate position ; appealed to by an offi- cer of the same department at a distance, to lend my aid in preserving the public peace — securing the safe trans, mission of the important contents of that valuable branch of the mail department — and arresting a course of excite- ment which could not fail to lead to the most disastrous results, I should not have hesitated to adopt that course which, in my judgment the highest obligations imposed, had it even demanded in some degree a temporary ' sur- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 23 render of the rights and privileges ' you^claim to possess. While manifesting so openly your benevolence to the colored people, 1 thought I had a right to claim some portion of your sympathies for the white population of that section of country — the peculiar situation of which Mr. Huger so fully described. I would respectfully ask, gentlemen, what injury could result from a momentary suspension of your efforts, compared with that which might have occurred, had they been pushed at all haz- ards ? " I entertain for you, and all your rights, every senti- ment of respect which is due, and I deeply regret that a departure from the original understanding, which promis- ed to prevent all excitement and collision, has compelled me to express myself so fully. I have reflected deeply on the subject. The laws which secure to you the rights you claim, also impose the penalties on those who in- fringe them. I shall assume the responsibility in the case you have made with me, and to the law and my superiors will hold myself accountable. " With great respect, &c. &;c. « SAM'L. L. GOUVERNEUR." « New-York, Aug. 9, 1835." We trust no one will do this journal the gross injustice to construe the censure we have taken leave to express of the extraordinary and disorganising sentiments of the Postmaster General, or of the unlawful conduct of Mr. Gouverneur, as an approval, in the slightest degree, of the course pursued by the Abolition Association. We consider the fanatical obstinacy of that Association, in persevering to circulate their publications in the southern states, contrary to the unanimous sentiment of the white population, and at the obvious risk of stirring up insur- rections, which, once commenced, no one can tell where 24 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP they will end, as reprehensible to a degree for which lan- guage has no terms of adequate censure. We have ex- pressed ourselves fully and frequently on this subject ; and if any remonstrances which we have the power to frame, or any appeals we could make to the reason or humanity of the abolitionists, could avail to restrain them from prosecuting their designs in the mode which has already led to so much excitement, and which threat- ens speedily to lead to consequences far more deplorable, our readers may be assured they should not be withheld. But while we deprecate, as earnestly and sincerely as any person can, in the north or south, the conduct of the abolitionists, we deprecate not less all unlawful and tu- multuary means of preventing or counteracting their ef- forts. We were taught long ago, by the sage precept of Jefferson, that " error may be safely tolerated, where reason is left free to combat il ; " and the truth of this maxim has been illustrated by a thousand notorious in- stances, under our free and tolerant institutions. We believe its orthodoxy would have borne the test of this ex- citing abolition question, and that if the tenets and con- duct of the Anti-Slavery Association had been met only in a temperate and reasoning spirit, all that is really dangerous in them, all that the south has any right to com- plain of, would long since have been given up. We be- lieve that fanaticism might have been subdued by sound calm argument, while it has only been inflamed to greater desperation and extravagance by the violent assaults it has encountered. We believe it might have been van- quished by Ithuriel's spear, while Antseus-like, it has gained new strength from every blow of the herculean club — the mob weapon which seems to be fast superced- ing the assuasive exercise of truth and reason. But whether we are right or wrong in these opinions, we hold fast, nevertheless, to the inviolability of the law, WILLIAM LEGGETT. 25 and exert our voice with all possible earnestness against the strange principle and practice of the day, that a mere ministerial servant of the public has power to say- when the law shall be executed and when set at nought. If the abolitionists cannot be restrained by reasoning and constitutional law, let them not be restrained by any other weapon. The liberty of speech and of the press are the main pillars in the great fabric of political liberty, and if they are shaken, the whole structure, reared at such cost, and guarded with such sleepless vigilance, will tumble to the dust. Can they be more directly assailed than by the recognition of a principle which puts it at the discre- tion of every rash and intriguing postmaster — to say what printed matter shall be circulated and what committed to the flames ? We trust the laws con- cerning the Post Office may undergo early and very ex- tensive reformation — a reformation which will throw pecuniary difficulties in the way of the gratuitous circula- tion of all sorts of political, philanthropical, and sectarian trash. But while they remain as they now are, it is as great an outrage against the equal rights of man, and as audacious an interference with the freedom of the press, to intercept and destroy the pamphlets of the abolitionists, as it would be those of the colonizationists, or any other association, or individual, of whatever sect, party, or name. We do not like the tone in which our southern bre- thren speak of matters connected with abolition. There is a great deal too much of the Ercles' vein in it. They are quite too much disposed to threaten ; and should the north retaliate in the same braggart style, ill blood might be stirred between us. There is one thing, we, for a sin- gle journal, with all due amenity of disposition, but in- flexible firmness of temper, shall take leave to assure Vol. II.— 3 26 POLITICAL WRITIIVGS OF our fellow-citizens south of Mason aud Dixon's line ; namely, that we shall not permit our right to discuss the question of slavery, or any other question under heaven, to be denied. Point us the section or clause in the arti- cles of confederation, or the obligation in any form or any place, which prohibits us from expressing our free opinions on that subject or any subject, and you may prevail upon us to be silent ; but by threats of disunion you never can. This ultima ratio of dissolving the fede- ral compact has got to be as familiar in the mouths of the southerners as household words. It is held up as a bugbear at every turn. Dissolve the Union, in welcome, if the only tie to hold it together must be wrought out of the sacred right of free discussion — if we must mix the cement with the very heart's blood of freedom. Dissolve the Union ! and pray what would the south gain by that ? Would that put an end to discussion ? Would that pre- vent men from speaking their thoughts on the subject of slavery ? Would that put afar off the evil day which the south is but hastening, with fearful rapidity, by the very method — the ill-judged, fatal method — which it takes to retard it ? We are as much opposed as the Richmond Enquirer, whose menacing language has somewhat moved us from our propriety, to such a discussion of the slave question as can at all interfere with the real prosperity of the south. We are wholly, strongly, inveterately opposed to the discussion of it in the mode adopted by the abolition- ists, and deplore that fanatical course of conduct which instead of bettering the condition of the slaves, necessa- rily subjects them to stricter vigilance and more severity of discipline, which fills the bosoms of the white popula- tion with anxiety and alarm, which excites in their minds the most unfriendly feelings towards their brethren of the north, and the fruit of which eventually must be WILLIAM LEGGETT. 27 insurrection, murder, and the shedding of blood like wa- ter. We need not repeat that we are opposed wholly, warmly, to this course of discussion. Nay we have yielded, and might continue to yield we know not how much longer, to the nervous fears of the south, and totally pretermit the discussion of the "slave question in every form and manner, if this were asked of us as a matter of concession, and not demanded, with accompanvino- threats, as a right. But it is one thing to remain silent through compassion and brotherly concern, and another to be rudely and authoritatively hushed by a vaunting command. But however displeasing the tone of the south is to us, its vapouring is a matter utterly insignificant compared with the theoretical violation by Mr. Kendall, and the practical violation by Mr. Gouverneur, of the equal rights of all citizens to disseminate their opinions through the mail. This outrage upon the principles of freedom, under the pretence oi patriotism (fine patriotism, with a vengeance !) is one of a most startling character. The act of the New-York postmaster would give us little con- cern were it not authorised by the avowed principles of his superior. As it is, where is this course of proceeding to stop 1 Whose rights are safe 1 We are all at the mercy of an army of postmasters, and must satisfy the discretion, of their high mightinesses that we mean no treason, before our opinions can have passage free. They stop the abolition journals to-day : who will insure us that they will not stop ours to-morrow ? Newspapers are the present object of imperial interdiction : who shall answer that the sanctity of letters will not next be vio- lated, their contents inspected, and their secrets be- trayed ? If the strange and startling doctrines we have heard promulgated within the past week are to prevail, we shall I 28 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF wish that Mr. Barry, with all his remissness, pliancy, and inattention, were again at the head of the Post-office, in the place of a man who considers it patriotism to dis- obey the laws. THE EVENING POST AND MR. VAN BUREN. [From the Evening Post of August 20, 1835.] The Richmond Whig takes some notice of the re- marks made by this journal on the letter of the Post- master General, and adds : " Now we are anxious to know if in this matter, the Post, which we understand to be the city organ of Mr. Van Buren, expresses his senti- ments ?" We shall take the pains to answer the Rich- mond Whig fully and candidly, and trust to the sense of honour and justice of that print to give a conspicuous in- sertion to our reply. The Evening Post is not the organ of Mr. Van Buren, or of any other man or set of men whatever, save and ex- cept its editors, who are also its proprietors, and who conduct their journal with exclusive reference to their own sense of right and expediency. They are in no private communication with Mr. Van Buren, directly or indirectly ; they know his sentiments only through public channels ; and their attachment to him is altogether political, and founded on their sincere estimate of Mr. Van Buren's public services and private virtues — their knowledge of his private virtues being an unavoidable inference from the fact, that the virulence of an opposition which does not hesitate to invade the do- mestic sanctuary, and even violate the grave, has found nothing in his private character to reprehend., Mr. Van Buren has no more to do with the contents WILLIAM LEGGETT 29 of the Evenins Post than has the editor of the Richmond Whig ; and he can answer for himself how much that is. Nay more, an article from Mr. Van Buren's pen, if offered for insertion to-morrow, would be judged of on precisely the same rules that govern in relation to all communications, and would be accepted or rejected with single reference to its sentiments and style, just as would be done in reference to an anonymous contribu- tion. What Mr. Van Buren's sentiments are in regard to Mr. Kendall's letter we do not know ; but we have con- fidence from what we do know of Mr. Van Buren's senti- ments, that he cannot approve the disorganizing doctrines of that letter. What Mr. Van Buren's sentiments are on the subject of state rights in regard to negro slavery the Richmond Whig may easily ascertain from public and authentic sources ; and what they are in regard to the expediency of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, is equally ascertainable from sources as public and well au- thenticated. Finally, there is ample ground for the assertion, and not any for a denial of it, that Mr. Van Buren has no connexion, in any way or shape, with the doctrines or movements of the abolitionists, and that the attempt, on the part of certain prints, to connect him with them is a base party trick, justifiable only according to the tenets of that school of morals which affirms that "aZ/ is fair in 'politics, ^^ 3* 30 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF MR. VAN BUREN AND SLAVERY. [From the Evening Post, August, 22, 1835.] The Richmond Whig of the nineteenth instant, com- mences an article in relation to certain opinions ex- pressed by this paper, by saying : " Mr. Van Buren's organ in the city of New-York most acrimoniously cen- sures Messrs. Kendall, Postmaster General, and Gouver- neur, Postmaster of the city of New-York, for their respec- tive letters." In this sentence our readers may see the progress of error. Falsehood seems to possess an inhe- rent, self-propelling power, and its tendency is always to move forward. Thus what one day the Richmond Whig puts forth conjecturally, as supposition, or matter of in- ference, is next day boldly asserted as matter of positive knowledge. On the 18th it understood this journal to be an organ of Mr. Van Buren, and on the 19th, without any intermediate corroboration of its opinion, surmise had grown into established fact. We are sorry that the Richmond Whig is thus increasing the difficulty of cor- recting its unfounded statement. The object of connecting this journal, in respect to its opinions touching the question of slavery, with Mr. Van Buren, is collaterally to injure that individual by imputing to him sentiments unfriendly to southern rights and in- terests. We must beg of the Richmond Whig, however, in justice to both ourselves and Mr. Van Buren, not to consider us as his mouthpiece, since no imputation can be more unjust, nor to censure him for our opinions, since he never has the least knowledge of them except through the same medium that conveys them to the Richmond Whig, namely, the columns of this newspaper. The Richmond Whig knows perfectly well that the paragraphs which it has quoted from this paper, it might WILLIAM LEGGETT. 31 have taken from the Albany Evening Journal, into which they were immediately copied with expressions of entire concurrence in the sentiments they express, and with an accompanying article as strongly reprehending the course of Amos Kendall as did our own. But if the Richmond Whig had quoted from the Albany Evening Journal, it could not have called it " Mr. Van Buren's organ ;" since it is notorious that there is not a print in the United States — not excepting even the Richmond Whig — more bitter against Mr. Van Buren than the paper in question. Yet, if a i^evf prints, including some in favour of Mr. Van Buren and others opposed to him, concur in express- ing objections to Mr. Kendall's sentiments, and he great majority of prints, without reference to their preferences or prejudices on the question of the Presidency, agree in approval, either explicit or tacit, of those sentiments, how can the Richmond Whig reconcile it to its sense of v/hat honour requires, as well in political warfare as in a contest of any other nature, to single out a particular paper, and by terming it an organ of Mr. Van Buren, disingenuously attempt to fasten upon him opinions with which he has no more connexion than the Richmond Whig itself? Let Mr. Van Buren stand or fall by his own merits. Do not seek to destroy him by imputing to him opinions with wliich he has nothing to do. Judge of him by his own acts and sentiments, and if these do not condemn him, attempt not to bolster up a bad cause by resorting to a species of political forsjery. It was modestly intimated in the Letter of Mr. Van Buren, accepting the nomination tendered him by the Baltimore Convention, that he owed his selection more to his being pointed out to the democracy by the persever- ing attacks of his enemies, than to any positive merit of his own. The merits of Mr. Van Buren may speak un- 32 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF bonneted to as proud a fortune as that to which he is about to be elevated by the free suffrages of the people of the United States ; and it did not need that he should be- come the object of opposition rancour to endear him to the hearts of the democracy, who, in the services he has done the state, in his even and consistent career, his uni- form support of popular rights, and his general integrity and worth in all the relations of life, public and private, are furnished with an ample warrant for the esteem in which they hold him. But this Ave will say : that if there were no positive evidences of Mr. Van Buren's claims to approbation, we yet could find, in the very bitterest prints of the aristocracy, the most abundant negative testimony of his merits. Let the reader look through the journals most violently opposed to that distin- • guished man — ^journals which give daily proof of the recklessness with which they overleap the domestic barri- ers and ransack the secret places of private life. Let him fasten on all he meets with relative to Mr. Van Bu- ren, drag it out into day-light, sift it and examine it, and what does it" amount to ? Is there a single act alleged against Mr. Van Buren for which he ought to blush ? — a single sentiment which he ought to retract 1 — a single expression which does discredit to his head or his heart ? He is called a magician ; yet not for the prac- tice of arts inhibited, for all his powers are those only of a superior nature, patriotically exercised for the advan- tage of his country. He is called an intriguer ; yet notwithstanding all the mutations of parties, and all the derelictions of friends which have occurred in the long period that the public gaze has been fixed upon him, the world is boldly challenged to show a single trace of se- cret plotting. In the absence of fitter themes of censure, his personal habits are chosen as topics of ridicule and reproach ; and the proud spirit of aristocracy has de- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 33 scended even so pitifully low as to descant on the style of his equipage and the fashion of his clothes ! The Richmond Whig, however, with a spirit of origi- nality which would be commendable, were it not a spirit of dishonesty also, strikes out a path for itself, and dis- daining to comment on the workmanship of Mr. Van Buren's watch-chain or the trimmings of his coach, attacks him on the more important ground of hostility to the rights and domestic institutions of the south. It is unfortunate for the object which the Richmond Whig seeks to accomplish that it has no foundation for its re- marks. This does not derogate from the boldness of its effort, but materially interferes with the prospect of suc- cess. Mr. Van Buren will hardly be deserted as un- friendly to the south, because the Evening Post has ex- pressed disapprobation of the sentiments of Mr. Kendall's letter. But we have a word to say on our own score as regards this subject of unfriendliness to the south. There is not a journal even in the trans-Potomack part of the Union which feels a stronger interest in the real welfare of that portion of the confederacy than is entertained by our- selves ; there is not one which has a nicer regard for their rights, or would make a greater effort to defend them. We have watched the progress of the question which is now agitating the southern states with the live- liest concern, and have witnessed the rapid increase of abolition fanaticism with the deepest regret, not un- mingled with alarm. If aught had been in our power to arrest that frantic sect, we should not have stood an in- active spectator of its progress. If any arguments urged by us could convince them of their fatal error, or if any persuasion would turn them from their course, neither reasoning nor exhortation should be withheld. Nay, further, with all the influence we can possibly exert, we 34 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP shall support every proper and constitutional effort to throw difficulties in the way of the abolitionists, and pro- tect the south from the subtle poison of their inflamma- tory and insurrectionary publications. Whatever can be done to promote the security of our brothers of the south, not inconsistently with the paramount obligations of the Constitution, and with those sacred principles of liberty on which the Constitution is founded, we shall do with all our heart and soul and understanding. But the Rich- mond Whig must excuse us if we pause at that line of demarkation. We cannot trample on the charter of our national freedom to assist the slave-holder in his warfare with fanaticism. We cannot subscribe to those disorga- nizing sentiments which would elevate ten thousand postmasters above the law, and constitute them censors of the press, however great our respect for the source from whence they proceeded, or however sincere our re- gret for the particular occasion which elicited them. Among the matters which our columns contain to-day is the " Calm Appeal," so called, of the Richmond En- quirer to the people of the north on the exciting subject which now engrosses so much of public attention. We need not ask of our readers to give this address a careful perusal, for the topic and the source will alike commend it to their gravest consideration. But great as our es- teem is for the writer who thus appeals to the citizens of this section of the confederacy, and ardent as is our de- sire that the bitter cup, which he seems to think we are raising to the lips of our southern brethren, may pass untasted from them, we cannot permit his address to go forth, without accompanying it with an expression of our disapprobation of much that it contains. Our time will not permit us to go into particular objections ; but we may state generally that it claims quite too much in denying the right of the north to discuss the question of WILLIAM LEGGETT. 35 slavery, and addresses its arguments too much to our fears. The grand alternative which the Richmond En- quirer seems to have ever in its eye, a dissolution of the Union, might not prove a remedy for all the ills the south is heir to. Far off be the day when the ties which unite our sisterhood of sovereignties shall be sundered ; but come that event when it may, there are none on whom the ills of separation will more sorely press than on those states which are ever so forward to " calculate the value of the Union,'' and to threaten its dissolution. FANATICAL ANTI-ABOLITIONISTS. [From the Evening Post, August 26, 1835.] The call for a public meeting to express the sense of this community on the subject of the efforts of the anti- slavery society is published in our paper this afternoon, with all the signatures attached. We do not like the phraseology of this call, and if the resolutions to be sub- mitted to the proposed meeting should be written in the same spirit, we shall be constrained to withhold our ap- probation from them. It would be well for those who are chiefly concerned in getting up the meeting to remember that there may be fanaticism as well among the anti- abolitionists as the abolitionists, and that incendiary lan- guage is as unjustifiable on the one part as the other. The call of a public meeting, and the proceedings of that meeting when convened, should be calm and temperate, suitable to the gravity of the occasion, and the dignity of the community. Such inflammatory phrases as " import, ed travelling incendiaries," and " misguided native fan- atics" smack too much of the Courier and Enquirer to accord with the seriousness of the subject in regard to which the people are called together to deliberate. It 36 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF would be a source of endless regret to all righte.minded men if this public gathering should degenerate into a nnob, and act over the scenes of the former abolition riot. Yet those engaged in drawing up the resolutions, besides the other considerations which strongly recommend modera- tion in sentiment and expression, would do well to bear in mind that in the present excited state of public feeling, a few inflammatory phrases might easily set men's minds on fire, and give a tumultuous character to an assemblage which can only truly promote the desired end by acting with the most impressive seriousness and decorum. REWARD FOR ARTHUR TAPPAN. [From the Evening Post, August 26, 1835.] The southern presses teem with evidences that fana- ticism of as wild a character as that which they depre- cate exists among themselves. How else could such a paper as the Charleston Patriot advert with tacit appro- val to the statement, that a purse of twenty thousand dol- lars has been made up in New-Orleans as a reward for the audacious miscreant who should dare to kidnap Arthur Tappan, and deliver him on the Levee in that city. Re- volting to right reason as such a proposition is, we find it repeated with obvious gust and approbation by prints conducted by enlightened and liberal minds — by minds that ordinarily take just views of subjects, achieve their ends by reasoning and persuasion, and exert all their in fluence to check the popular tendency to tumult. Is the Charleston Patriot so blinded by the peculiar circumstan- ces in which the south is placed as not to perceive that the proposed abduction of Arthur Tappan, even if con- summated by his murder, as doubtless is the object, would necessarily have a widely different effect from that of sup- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 37 pressing the Abolition Association, or in anywise dimin- ishing its zeal and ardour ? Does it not perceive, on the contrary, that such an outrage would but inflame the minds of that fraternity to more fanatical fervour, and stimulate them to more strenuous exertions, while it would add vast numbers to their ranks though the influ- ence of those feelings which persecution never fails to arouse. But independent of the effect of the proposed outrage on the abolitionists themselves, what, let us ask, would be the sentiments it would create in the ent-re com- munity ? Has the violence of the south, its arrogant pretensions and menacing tone so overcrowded our spir- its, that we would tamely submit to see our citizens snatched from the sanctuary of their homes, and carried ofFby midnight ruffians, to be burned at a stake, gibbeted on a tree, or butchered in some public place, without the slightest form of trial, and without even the allegation of crime ? Are our lav/s so inert, are our rights so ill-guard- ed, that we must bear such outrages without repinino- or complaint? Is our Governor a wooden image, that he would look on such unheard of audacity and make no ef- fort to avenge the insult ? These are questions which it will be well for the south to ponder seriously before it of- fers rewards to ruffians for kidnapping citizens of New- York. If the south v/ishes to retain its slaves in bondage, let it not insult the whole population of this great free state by threatening to tear any citizen from the protec- tion of our laws and give him up to the tender mercies of a mob actuated by the most frantic fanaticism. Such a proceeding would make abolitionists of our whole two millions of inhabitants. Vol. II.— 4 38 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF Me. KENDALL'S LETTER. [From the Evening Post, August 29, 1835.] If the letter of Mr. Kendall to the postmaster at Charles- ton deserved the animadversions which have been pass' ed upon it, that to Mr. Gouverneur, which was publish- ed in this paper yesterday, requires stricture in a much greater degree ; and it was a source of regret to us that circumstances compelled us to place it before our readers unaccompanied by a full expression of dissent from the extraordinary positions it maintains. We hasten to sup- ply the omission by making it the chief subject of our at- tention to-day. The letter of Mr. Kendall, after a passing remark about the " fatuity" of the abolitionists, which must be considered as the expression of a mere personal opinion, and therefore out of place in an official communication, proceeds to acknowledge, in the clearest terms, that, after the fullest consideration of the subject, he is satisfied that the Postmaster General has no authority to exclude any species of newspapers or pamphlets from the mails, and adds that such a power, as it would be fearfully danger- ous, has been properly withheld. But in the very face and teeth of this admission, Mr. Kendall goes on to say, that nothing but the want of power deters him from giv- ing a sweeping order to exclude the whole series of aboli- tion publications from the southern mails. How strik- ing a proof he affords of the truth of his own remark, that such a power of censorship or interdiction vested in the head of the post-office department « would be fearfully dangerous, and has been properly withheld !" Ay, most properly ! Yet though this fearfully dangerous power has been withheld from the Postmaster General, that func- tionary is in favour of its exercise by his subordinates, WILLIAM LEGGETT. 39 and instead of reprehending Mr. Gouverneur for his law- less conduct, he pats him on the back, and tells hini in plain phrase, "if I were situated as you are, I would do as you have done !" We confess that, had not Mr. Kendall's previous letter taken off the edge of our aston- ishment, this sentiment would have occasioned a keener surprise than we are well able to express in words. Let us look at the reason of this thing calmly. The Government has 'carefully withheld from the post-office department a certain power, because it was too fearfully dangerous in its nature to be trusted to the discretion of even the chief officer, under any limitations, however guarded, or responsibilities for its abuse, however heavy. Yet this very power, so jealously and scrupulously with- held from the chief officer, that officer, in the same breath that he acknowledges his lack of it, and commends the wisdom that refused to confer it upon him, applauds his subordinate for usurping, and assures him of the concur- rent applause of his country and mankind ! Was ever contradiction more manifest ? Was ever folly, or " fatu- ity," if the Postmaster General prefers the word, more palpable ? Postmasters, the letter goes on to say, may, in all cases, lawfully know the contents of newspapers, because the law provides that they shall be so put up as to admit of their being examined. The thirtieth section of the post- office law of 1825 does certainly require " that all news- papers conveyed in the mail shall be under cover, open at one end." And it also ordains that " if any person shall enclose or conceal a letter, or other thing, or any memoran- dum in writing, in a newspaper, pamphlet, or magazine, or in any package of pamphlets, newspapers, or maga- zines, or make any writing or memorandum thereon, which he shall have delivered into any post-office, or to any person for that purpose, in order that the same may 40 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF be carried by post, free of letter postage, he shall forfeit the sum of five dollars for every such oftence.'' Now, here the purpose is distinctly seen why the law requires that the covers of newspapers should be open at one end. It is not that the postmasters may make themselves ac- quainted with the contents of newspapers, in order to judge whether or not « they are inflammatory, incendiary, and insurrectionary in the highest degree," and to exer- cise their supreme discretion whether they ought to be forwarded or retained ; but it is simply that they may ascertain whether they conceal any such attempt to de- fraud the Department of postage as is pointed out and made penal by the clause quoted above. If the covers of newspapers are directed to be left open at one end for any other purpose than this, where is that purpose stated ? If it is that postmasters may make themselves acquainted with the contents, there surely should exist some word of direction or intimation to that effect. To infer that they may lawfully set themselves down and peruse all the publications which are sent to be circulated through the mail, because those publications are left accessible for an express and very different purpose, is about as wise as to infer that because a pastry-cook leaves his shop-door open for the accommodation of his customers, a street beggar may enter and consume all his pies and tarts without fee or reward. But fortunately, after the sample we have had of the dis- cretion of postmasters and postmaster generals, this thing is not left to inference. The law is so perfectly explicit that Mr. Kendall's sophistry, ingenious as it is, stands but little chance before it ; and he will be driven back, perforce, to his former position, and compelled to derive his au- thority for this general perusal of newspapers on the part of his subordinates, in their search after incendiary mat- ter, to that obligation which he alleges we owe to the WILLIAM LEGGETT. 41 communities in which we live above the laws by which those communities are governed. In the very section that directs that one end of newspaper covers shall be left open, it is ordained that " if any person, employed in any department of the post-office, shall improperly detain, delay, embezzle, or destroy any newspaper, or shall per- mit any other person to do the like, or shall open any mail or packet of newspapers not directed to the office where he is employed, such offender shall, on conviction thereof, forfeit a sum, not exceeding fifty dollars, for every such offence." We fancy it is not from this clause that the Postmaster General gets his authority for saying that " postmasters may lawfully know, in all cases, the contents of newspapers," Let us state briefly the tenour of some other clauses, that the reader may single out the one from which this alleged right is derived. The law provides that any master of a steam- boat carrying the mail who shall fail to deliver to the post- master, within a specified time, any packet with which he may have been entrusted, shall forfeit thirty dollars for every failure : that if any person shall wilfully obstruct or retard the mail, he shall be fined a hundred dollars : and that if any person employed in the post-office shall detain, open, or destroy any letter or packet of letters, he shall be fined not exceeding three hundred dollars, or im- prisoned not exceeding six months. In none of these clauses, we presume, does Mr. Kendall discover his au- thority for the postmasters reading all the newspapers and pamphlets which pass through their hands. Indeed we are driven to the conclusion that the warrant for do- ing so exists only in that profound maxim which makes their duty to the community paramount to that which they have solemnly sworn to yield to the laws. Incen- diary articles may set whole communities on fire ; news- papers and pamphlets may contain incendiary articles j 42 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF ergo, it is proved syllogistically, that their duty to the community obliges them to read all the newspapers and pamphlets which come into their hands, the law to the contrary notwithstanding. And now that this stumbling-block is removed from the path of the argument, and it is established that the postmasters, heaven defend them ! ought to read the con- tents of all packages " open at one end," let us see what is the next position we arrive at. Why, neither more nor less, than that, if they discover the said contents to be inflammatory, " it cannot be doubted that it is their duty to detain them, if not even to hand them over to the civil authorities." This we deny ; unless the Postmaster General is going again for his authority to his paramount obligation to the community, and means to thrust the des. pised law aside as something beneath his notice. If the postmaster's duty is derived from the law : if it is circum- scribed by those solemn words, " I do swear that I will faithfully perform all the duties required of me, and ah- stain from every thing forbidden, by the laws in relation t© the establishment of the post-offices and post-roads within the United States ;" it seems to us perfectly plain, that his detention of publications, because he deemed them inflammatory, would be flat perjury. Congress has not trusted to the Postmaster General that " fearfully dangerous power'' of excluding any species of newspapers from the mails ; and it has not trusted it to the post- masters under him : where then the authority which, in the case supposed, or in any supposable case, would make it their duty to detain publications of the kind referred to, or of any kind whatever ? But while the Postmaster General thus proclaims what he considers as beyond a doubt the duty of the postmas- ters under him in a given case, he is careful to repeat several times that he has no authority to direct them to WILLIAM LEGGETT. 43 do SO ; that " they act on their own responsibility, and if they improperly detain or use papers sent to their offices, for transmission or delivery, it is at their own peril, and on their heads falls the punishment.'* The meaning of the phrase, '•''improperly detain " as used in the Post- office law, is fixed by the stipulations of that law as to what is proper to be done. All unnecessary delay, all vo- luntary delay, in executing the injunctions of the law is improper delay ; but delay arising from unavoidable ca- sualties or unforeseen hinderances of any kind, does not come under that head. Thus, if an unusual number of publications should be poured into the post-office on any occasion, and the means of conveyance should be inade- quate to the immediate transmission of them all, the delay which might occur in forwarding a portion would be a necessary and not improper delay. Thus also the delay occasioned by freshets, broken bridges, and a hundred other casualties of the roads, is not improper delay in the meaning of the law. But delay occasioned by postmas- ters keeping packages back in order to peruse their con- tents, or having perused them, because they consider them " inflammatory, incendiary, and insurrectionary in the highest degree," is clearly, within the meaning of the law, improper delay. It is improper, because it is no part of the postmaster's duty to peruse printed com.muni- cations through his office, any more than written ones, but on the contrary he his directly forbidden to do so un- der a penalty ; and further, because, if he violates this part of his duty, and peruses thom in defiance of the law, the " fearfully dangerous power" is neither entrusted to him nor to his superior, nor indeed is it possessed by the General Government itself, to authorize their detention, on account of their tendency, real or supposed, whether in a religious or moral, a political or social respect. But while the Postmaster General is so anxious to shift 44 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF from his own head all responsibility for this discretionary exercise of unauthorized and " fearfully dangerous" power, he takes care that the load of responsibility shall not rest very heavy on the heads of his subordinates. He talks, indeed, of the " peril" and " punishment" which they will incur if they improperly exercise their unauthorized dis- cretion ; but in this most monstrous and flagrant in- stance, in which a Postmaster has audaciously exercised " fearfully dangerous'' powers not only not conferred up- on him, but expressly interdicted under heavy penalties, his superior, at whose hands he must be punished if he has incurred punishment, smiles graciously upon him, and tells him, " if I were situated as you are, I would do as you have done," and *' you will, I have no doubt, stand justified in that step before your country and all mankind !" More monstrous, more anarchical doctrines, we never heard promulgated. With what face after this, can Mr. Kendall punish a postmaster for any exercise of the fear- fully dangerous power of stopping and destroying any por- tion of the mails ? He has but to say, I considered the contents of that portion " inflammatory, incendiary, and insurrectionary in the highest degree," and Mr. Kendall is bound in consistency to reply to him that, in his place, he would have done the same, and that his country and mankind will applaud the proceeding. The case which the Postmaster General puts, of the discretionary power which it would be proper for a post- master to exercise in the event of a war, is not analogous. The abolitionists do not deserve to be considered on the same footing with a foreign enemy, nor their publications as the secret despatches of a spy. They are American citizens, in the exercise of the undoubted rights of citizen- ship, and however erroneous their views, however fanatic their conduct, while they act within the limits of the law what ofl[icial functionary, be he merely a subordinate WILLIAM LEGGETT. 45 postmaster, or the head of the post-office department, shall dare to ahridge them of their rights of citizenship, or deny them access to those facilities of intercourse which were instituted for the equal accommodation of all ? If the American people will submit to this, let us ex- punge all written codes, and resolve society into its ori- ginal elements, where the might of the strong is better than the right of the weak. The Postmaster General affects to consider the course pursued by Mr. Gouverneur '* a measure of great public necessity ;" and he enters into a very rhetorical descrip- tion of the consequences which will result from throwing firebrands into magazines of combustibles. We shall leave Mr. Kendall's figures of rhetoric to take care of them- selves, and shall only give our attention to his arguments stripped of their showy integuments. It is by no means clear, then, that the deplorable efiects which it is considered would inevitably flow from the circulation of the abolition pamphlets are correctly stated. Mr. Ken- dall himself does not profess to be personally acquainted with the character of those productions, and the "concur- rent testimony" which he alludes to is somewhat too vague and declamatory to be altogether trusted. The abolitionists, many, if not the most of whom, say what we may of their opinions and conduct on the question of slaver}"-, are respectable, intelligent, religious men, and mean well, whatever may be the effect of their efforts — the abolitionists, we say, have peremptorily denied, in of- ficial publications, a large part of the matters charged against them. They have denied, for example, that their publications have been addressed to any but respectable citizens, or were intended to circulate among any others. They have denied that they were addressed, directly or indirectly, to the passions of the slave, but wholly to the reason and conscience of the master. The statements 46 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP of the southern postmasters themselves, as far as they go corroborate this assertion. Here then one important part of the " concurrent testimony" on which Mr. Ken- dall relies is seen to be defective. But let us admit that the pamphlets and newspapers of the Anti-Slavery Society are as incendiary as alleg- ed, and that they are intended for the perusal of slaves even more than of masters, still we maintain that a much more effectual, and certainly much more legal means of defeating the object of the abolitionists was in the power of the southern people than disobedience of the law, and violation of their oaths on the part of the public officers of the United States. We are frequently told, with vari- ous degrees of vaunting, that on this question of abolition, the south is as one man — that it presents an undivided front — that there is no dissenting voice. By the means then, of quiet and efficient organization, by vigilance committees, and the other measures of internal police which the nature of the evil would naturally suggest to them, they might more certainly prevent the circulation of the dreaded publications, than by any forcible seizure of the post-office, or any violation of his sworn duty by the postmaster in their behalf. If they secure the post- office, either by their own violence, or the treachery of its guardian, they block up but one channel of the stream of free opinion. By the peaceable means which we have suggested they would dam them all. The necessity of vigilance would still press upon them as to other sources of danger, if all fears of the post-office were lulled to rest ; so that a little added watchfulness for the few months that must elapse before Congress can revise the post- office laws is not an evil of so greivous a character as to justify Mr. Kendall's denominating the proceeding of Mr. Gouverneur "a measure of great public necessity." But the most important, the most startling part of Mr. WILLIAM LEGGETT. 47 Kendall's letter we have not yet at all considered. He wishes to throw the question on the popular ground of state rights, and expresses a strong doubt whether the abolitionists have a right to make use of the public mails in distributing their papers through the southern states. The question here arises, who are the abolitionists ! The Courier and Enquirer, a print which says more, and therefore ought to know more on the subject than any other in the United States., calls this journal an abolition print. The Albany Argus, has intimated the same thing, and the Lynchburg Virginian, with some foul-mouthed per- sonalties about " the cashiered midshipman," repeats the slander. The American, also, for opposing this new and " fearfully dangerous" species of censorship of the press which the Postmaster General labours so hard to estab- lish, and in which he is so readily seconded by the prac- tical efforts of Mr. Gouverneur — the American, also, has been styled an abolition newspaper. Now, we ask, who is to decide what journals are abolition and what not ? Is Samuel L. Gouverneur to sit in judgment over the American and the Evening Post, and decide whether they shall be permitted to pass to their southern subscri- bers ? whether there is not some law, in some slave state, which would include our sheets within its ban, for daring to exercise the right of free discussion, on a momentous question, under the warrant of that provision in the Con- stitution, of the United States, repeated in almost every state Constitution which guarantees to every citizen the freedom of speech and of the press ? But let us pass over this difficulty which lies at the threshold, and take a full view of Mr. Kendall's new state rights doctrine as applicable to the post office. When the southern states, he says, became independent, '* they acquired a right to prohibit abolition papers within 48 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP their territories ; and the power over the subject of slave- ry and all its incidents was in no degree diminished by the adoption of the federal constitution." He further states that, under this sovereign power, some states have made the circulation of abolition papers a capital crime, and others a felony ; and concludes by asking whether the people have a right to do by the mail carriers and Postmasters, what if done by themselves or agents would subject them to the most degrading punishment. It is a great mistake to say that the power of the southern states over slavery and all its incidents was in no degree dimi- nished by the adoption of the federal constitution. One of the " incidents, '' the power of importing slaves, was cer- tainly taken away. But every other « incident" of slavery, with which any single provision of the federal constitution conflicts was necessarily diminished. The Constitution, no matter what were the previous laws of the state, be- came, on its adoption, the supreme fundamental law of the confederacy. So far from the incidents of slavery beino" in no wise impaired, many of the sagest men in the Virginia Convention, among them Governor Ran- dolph, Mason, and Patrick Henry, were decidedly of opinion that the Constitution gave the General Govern- ment the power of abolishing slavery altogether, in vari- ous ways, either by the operation of inordinate taxes, or by requiring the slaves to do military service, and eman- cipating them as the reward. One of the first things, it is true, which the Congress did under the existing Con- stitution, was to disavow any right on the part of the General Government to interfere with the subject of slave- ry. But a resolution of Congress has not the force of Constitutional law. Passed at one session it may be rescinded at another, and even expunged from the jour- nals, as we trust will soon be corroborated by a conspicu- ous instance. W I L L I A M L E G G E T T . 49 When the several states adopted a Constitution which gave to the federal government the pov/er to estabUsh the post office, and the power also to make all laws neccs- saiy and proper to carry that clause into efiect, they gave up all right of extending their local penal enactments, as to the circulation of prohibited publications of any kind, so as to include those officers of the General Govern- ment who were merely carrying into effect the provisions of a constitutional law, clearly sheltered under the ceded power above referred to. A constitutional doubt of this kind, when it touches the question of slavery, is of a more exciting character, than when it embraces other matters ; but it rests precisely on the same foundation as many other doubts which have been started and set- tled, and must have the same disposition made of it. The question of the Sunday mail is one of precisely analagous character. Many persons, as fanatical with regard to violations of the Sabbath as the abolitionists are on the subject of slavery, were of opinion that the sovereign power of the states extended over the subject of religion so far as to authorize the stopping of the mails on Sun- day. The question was tried, and the result proved otherwise. Yet if the power " to establish post-offices and post- roads " includes, as a necessary incident, the power to run mails every day and hour, through every state in the confederacy, it must also include the power to preserve those mails inviolable until their contents are safely deliv. ered into the hands to which they are addressed. If the Government possesses the one power it necessarily does the other. If it possesses neither, the post office clause in the Constitution is a mere mockery — the shadow of a shade. Our article has run out to such an unexpected length that we must now cut it short, though there are still sev- Vol. it.— 5 50 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF eral topics on which we wished to express our views. Mr. Kendall's ingenious, but most heterodox and nullify- ing letter concludes with the expression of a hope, that Mr. Gouverneur and the other postmasters who have as- sumed the responsibility of stopping the publications of the Anti-Slavery Society, *' will see the necessity of performing their duty in transmitting and delivering ordi- nary newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, with per- fect punctuality." Verily we have fallen on evil times when such a request or injunction from a high officer of the General Go\ernmenttohis subordinates isnecessary. Does not that very sentence include within itself a whole volume of commentary ? TROUBLE IN HAVERHILL. [From the Evening Post, September 3, 1835.] "Last evening, (Sunday,) Mr. May, the abolitionist lecturer, attempted to hold forth in Haverhill, Mass. At the hour of assembling, the meeting-house was filled with numbers of both sexes, and the lecturer commenced his discourse, when a volley of stones and lighted fire- crackers were showerd through the windows into the pulpit and upon the congregation, who immediately dis- persed. A piece of ordnance was brought upon the spot, probably to frighten the congregation." So says Brigg's Boston Bulletin. The rights of free discussion are forsooth marvellously well respected in this land of liberty ! Formerly, in frontier settlements, beyond the regular operation of law, and in cases where the offences of criminals were too clear to admit of doubt and too base to deserve the slightest lenity. Judge Lynch, so called, was content with administering a spe- cies of codex rohustus, which the criminal himself did not WILLIAM LEGGETT. 51 more dread to encounter, than the thongs and whipping post to which a more authentic judicial tribunal would have condemned him. But this Judge Lynch, with the proneness to usurpa- tion which characterises all possessors of ill-defined power, has lately extended most fearfully the prescriptive boun- daries of his authority. All places are now within the limits of his jurisdiction, and all sorts of crimes, real or imputed, and whether known as such in the statute books or not, are provided for in his unwritten law. The man who — thinking that clause in the Constitution means something which guarantees to every citizen of the Unit- ed States freedom of speech and of the press — ascends the pulpit, now-a-days, to deliver his sentiments on an interesting subject, may count himself fortunate indeed if he ever descends from it alive ; as the probability is he will be hung by the neck to the very horns of the altar by some summary decision under the authority of Lynch law, which, it seems, is entirely paramount to the Consti- tution and the natural rights of man. In the case which we copy above, it is matter of mar- vel that the piece of ordnance, loaded with round shot and grape, was not discharged at the broadside of the meetintr-house, the more efFectuallv '* to frifj^hten tlie congregation," which end would have been still more certainlv consummated if a few men, women and children had been killed on the spot. It is a thousand pities Judge Lynch, usually inexorable, was so weakly merciful in this instance, since it is now quite possible that the abolition, ist he has suffered to escape may attempt again to ex- ercise his freedom of speech, and the same misguided persons may venture to listen to him ; whicli manifestly could not have happened if they had been killed outright. There is one little doubt which sometimes obtrudes itself .nto our minds to prevent us from being wholly 52 rOLITICAL WRITINGS OF proselyted to the faith of Lynchism ; namely, whether, after all, the best mode of correcting error of opinion is to destroy the freedom of speech. A little stream, which, if left alone, would soon lose itself in marshes and sedgy places, is sometimes, by being dammed up, swelled to a mighty volume, giving propulsive force to engines of enormous power. It may be so with regard to the abo- litionists. It is true, if a man utters dangerous doctrines, he is effectually silenced by cutting his throat, and as dead men tell no tales, so neither do they preach imme- diate abolition. Yet it is a question, which history does not answer altogether to suit the practise of Judge Lynch and his myrmidons, whether the blood so shed sinks into the barren earth, or whether, like that which trickled from Medusa's severed head, it will not engender a brood of serpents which shall entwine themselves around the monster slavery, and crush it in their sinewy folds. THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. {From the Evening Post, Sept. 4, 1835.] The annexed address to the public has been sent to us inclosed in a note from an officer of the Anti-Slavery Society, requesting us, in " behalf of the society whose document it is, and in justice to the public who have a right to the information it contains," to publish it in our columns this afternoon. We moat cheerfully comply with this request ; and furthermore invite the attention of our readers to this address, as not only one which it is incumbent on them in fairness to peruse, but as one, the sentiments of which, with a single exception, deserve, in our judgment, their approval. It is quite time, since the South seems determined that WILLIAM LEGGETT, 53 we shall discuss the question of slavery, whether we will or no, that we remember the maxim which lies at the foundation of justice, Hear the other side. We have lis- tened very credulously to the one side. We have with greedy ears devoured up all sorts of passionate invectives against the abolitionists, and received as gospel, without evidence, the most inflammatory and incendiary tirades against them. While appropriating to them exclusively the epithets of incendiaries and insurrectionists, we have ourselves been industriously kindling the flames of domes- tic discord, and stirring up the wild spirit of tumult. It is high time to pause, and ask ourselves what warrant we have for these proceedings ? It is time to balance the account current of inflammatory charges, and see which side preponderates, whether that of the incendiaries of the north or of the south. We have here, in the subjoined official address, signed with the names of men whom we believe too upright to lie, and who certainly have shown that they are not afraid to speak the truth, an exposition of the creed and practise of the Anti-Slavery Society. We have already said that, in our judgment, the matters contained in this document, with a single exception, deserve cordial appro- val. This expression we wish taken with a qualification. We do not approve of perseverance in sending pamplilets to the south on the subject of slavery in direct opposition to the unanimous sentiments of the slaveholders ; but we do approve of the strenuous assertion of the right of free discussion, and moreover we admire the heroism which cannot be driven from its ground by the maniac and unsparing opposition which the abolitionists have encoun- tered. The particular portion of the subjoined document which we except from our approval is that wherein it is asserted as the duty of Congress to abolish slavery in the 5* 54 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF District of Columbia. That Congress has the constitu- tional power so to do, we have not the slightest doubt. But high considerations of expediency, in the largest sense of the word, should be well weighed before an exer- cise of that power is attempted. A spirit of conciliation and compromise should govern in the matter, as it did in the formation of our sacred Magna Charta, Every state in the confederacy should be considered as having an equal interest in the seat of the National Government, and the legislation for it should be of that neutral tint, which results from the mixture of contrary hues of opin- ion, and is in strong opposition to none. If the free states have a majority in Congress, yet paramount con- siderations of brotherhood and national amity should pre- vent them from stirring the question of slavery, by in. troducing it in any collateral or insidious form. When- ever that question once fully comes into general discus, sion it is destined to shake our empire to the centre. Let the commotion be then avoided in regard to a spot of ground which is not a pin's point on the map, and in the government of which, more than in almost any other question, the sentiments of the minority ought to be re. spected. We are not sure that the Harry Percys of the South, are not by their hot menaces and inconsiderate vaunts precipitating a discussion which must be entered into sooner or later, and may, perhaps, as well be undertaken at once. Be that as it may, their high and boastful lan- guage shall never deter this print from expressing its opinion that slavery is an opprobrium and a curse, a mon- strous and crying evil, in whatever light it is viewed ; and that we shall hail, as the second most auspicious day that ever smiled on our republic, that which shall break the fetters of the bondman, and give his enfranchised WILLIAM LEGGETT. 55 spirit leave to roam abroad on the illimitable plain of equal liberty. We have no right to interfere legislatively with the sub- ject of slavery in our sister states, and never have arro- gated any. We have no moral right to stir the question in such a way as to endanger the lives of our fellow human beings, white or black, or expose !! e citizens of the north, attending to their occasions in the south, to the horrors of Lynch law. Nay, we repeat, what we have often asserted with as sincere earnestness as any loud-mouthed anti-abolitionist, that we deeply depio e all intemperate movements on this momentous subject, in view of the dreadful wrecks which the meeting tides of contrary fanaticism must spread around their borders. But while we truly entertain these sentiments, we know no reason that renders it incumbent on us to conceal how far our views are really opposed to slavery ; and while we disclaim any constitutional right to leorislate on the subject, we assert, without hesitation, that, if we pos- sessed the right, we should not scruple to exercise it for the speedy and utter annihilation of servitude and chains. The impression made in boyhood by the glorious excla- mation of Cato, that A day, an hour of virtuous liberty, Is worth a whole eternity of bondage, has been worn deeper, not effaced, by time ; and we eagerly and ardently trust that the 'day will yet arrive when the clank of the bondman's fetters will form no part of the multitudinous sounds which our country con- tinually sends up to heaven, mingling, as it were, into a song of praise for our national prosperity. We yearn with stroncr desire for the dav when Freedom shall no longer wave " Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves." 56 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF POST-OFFICE PATRONAGE. [From the Evening Post, Sept. 5, 1835.] Those persons who have been in the habit of looking into this paper, at stated periods, hitherto, to see the post-office Hst of uncalled for letters, and who may be disappointed at not finding it in our columns any more, are referred to the New-York Times, to which journal that portion of the " government patronage " has been transferred. The object of this change is, we suppose, to punish the Evening Post for maintaining the supre- macy of the Constitution and the inviolability of the law, in opposition to the seditious doctrines of the Postmaster General, and the audacious conduct of his deputy, Mr. Gouverneur, the postmaster of this city. Such modes of punishment, however, have been tried on us before with- out effect. We once expressed dislike, we remember, of the undignified tone of one of Mr. Woodbury's official letters, as Secretary of the Treasury, to Nicholas Bid- die ; and the Treasury advertisements were thencefor- ward withheld. The Secretary of the Navy having acted with gross partiality in regard to a matter recently tried by a naval court-martial, we had the temerity to censure his conduct ; and of course we could look for no further countenance from that quarter. The Navy Com- missioners, being Post-Captains, may naturally be sup- posed to have taken in high dudgeon our inquiry into the oppression and tyranny practised by their order ; and «stop our advertisements!" is the word of command es- tablished in such cases. When the Evening Post expos- ed the duplicity of Samuel Swartwout, the Collector of this Port, it at once lost all further support from the Cus- tom House. And now, having censured the doctrines WILLIAMLEGGETT. 57 of Mr. Kendall and the practice of Mr. Gouverneur, the Post-office advertising is withdrawn, of course. About all this we wish our readers to understand that we do not utter a single complaint ; for as we never, directly nor indirectly, solicited any man or institution to take our paper, or give us custom in any shape, so we never shall remonstrate against its being discontinued, at the pleasure of tliose who bestow it. We merely state the fact for the information of all whom it may concern, and shall take the liberty of adding the assurance, for the accuracy of w^hich the past, indeed, furnishes some vouchers, that the course of this journal cannot be influ- enced, a hair's breadth, by that species of reasoning which mav be termed the argumentwn ad locultim. The quality of independence would be worth but little if it could stand no sacrifices : ours, at all events is not of so sickly a kind ; and any losses we may incur in fearlessly maintaining the right of free discussion and th supre- macy of the laws, and in e rnestly and undeviatingly pursuing, on all subjects, that path which honesty and honour point out, will always be cheerfully sustained. The taking away of the post-office " patronage " (exe- crable word !) has not made Mr. Kendall's letter and Mr. Gouverneur's conduct appear a whit more heterodox and dangerou=< than they did before; atjd the restoration of it to-morrow would not render them a jot more sound and harmless in our view. Our opinions on the subject presented by the letters of those two functionaries were formed from a perusal of the letters themselves, not from a consideration of our subscription-book and leger. We never regulate our course by such low and uncertain standards, but endeavour, without extraneous bias, to de- termine all questions by the immutable principles of truth and reason, and to act accordingly with boldness and zeal, leaving consequences in the hands oi the comniu- 58 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF nity. We ought to add that our experience, so far, has corroborated the good old maxim, that honesty is the best policy. There is n • f'ani]jer that the withdrawal of the post-office advertisements w 11 render our minds at all doubtful of the truth of the saying, or of its invariable excellence as a guide of conduct. ABOLITIONISTS. [From the Evening Post, September 7, 1835.] There is a class of newspaper writers who seem to think that epithets are more powerful than arguments, and who therefore continually bestow on their opponents odious appellations, instead of counteracting the tendency of their views by temperate expositions of their fallacy. To call names certainly requires less effort of mind than to reason logically, and to persons of certain tastes and powers may therefore be the most congenial mode of dis- putation. But we are not aware that the highest de- gree of proficiency in this species of dialectics eve hrew much light on the world, or sensibly advanced the cause of truth ; and it may be doubted if even the fisherwomen of Billingsgate, who we believe stand unrivalled in vitu- perative eloquence, can be considered as ranking among the most edifying controversialists. There are those, however, who widely differ from us in this opinion, if we may judge by their practise ; who deem a harsh epithet more conclusive than a syllogism, a d a personal allusion s comprising in itself subject, predicate, and copula. By this class of reasoners it has been our fortune to have many of our views opposed, and it is amusing to see the air of triumph with which they utter their opprobrious terms, as if each one levelled to WILLIAM LEGCETT. 59 the earth a whole file of arguments. Thus the fall icy of our views on banking was unanswerably demonstrated by calling us a lunatic ; the folly of our opposition to mo- nopolies was made manifest by likening us to Jack Cade; and all reasoning in sup o t of the equa' r.gh s of man was summarily overthrown by the tremendous epithet of agrarian. The views which we have felt it our duty to urge on various other subjects were irrevocably scattered by a volley of small shot, among which the piirases '» sai- lor actor editor," and " chanting cherubs of the Post," did the most fatal execution. And now, again, our exer- tions in support of the sacred right of free discussion, and in defence of the supremacy of the laws, are answered by a single word — by denouncing us as abolitionists. There are persons who might be frightened into silence by the terrors of this formidable epithet ; but we have something of the same spirit in us that animates those to whom it more truly applies, and do not choose to be driven back by the mere vulgar exclamations of men who wield no weapon but abuse, and who do not even know the meaning of the words they so liberally employ. The foundation of our political creed is unbounded confidence in the intelligence and integrity of the great mass of mankind ; and this confidence sustains and emboldens us in our course on every public question which arises. We are led by it, not to inquire into individual prejudices or opinions ; not to an anxious examination of the popu- lar pulse on every particular subject ; but to an inquiry, simply, into the abstract merits of the question, and an examination of it by the tests of truth and reason, rely, ing on the popular wisdom and honesty to sustain the line of conduct which such scrutiny suggests. It is so in the present case. There is no terror in the term abo- litionist for us ; for we trust to our readers to discrimi. nate between words and things, and to judge of us by our 60 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF sentiments, not by the appellations which foul-mouthed opponents bestow. The course we are pursuing is one which we entered upon after mature deliberation, and we are not to be turned from it by a species of opposition, the inefficacy of which we have seen displayed in so many former instances. It is Phihp Van Artavelde who says — All my life long, I have beheld with most respect the man Who knew himself, and knew the ways before hira, And from amongst them chose considerately, With a clear foresight, not a blindfold courage ; And having chosen, with a steadfast mind Pursued his purposes. This is the sort of character we emulate. If to believe slavery a deplorable evil and a curse, In whatever light it is viewed ; if to yearn for the day which shall break the fetters of three millions of human beings, and restore to them their birth-right of equal free- dom ; if to be willing, in season and out of season, to do all in our power to promote so desirable a result, by all means not inconsistent with higher duty : if these senti- ments constitute us abolitionists, then are we such, and glory in the name. But while we mourn over the servi- tude which fetters a large portion of the American peo. pie, and freely proclaim that, did the control of the sub- ject belong to us, we would speedily enfranchise them all, yet we defy the most vigilant opponent of this journal to point his finger to a word or syllable that looks like hos- tility to the political rights of the south, or conceals any latent desire to violate the federal compact, in letter or spirit. The obligations of the federal compact, however, are greatly misrepresented by those who contend that it places a ban on all discussion of the question of slavery. It places an interdiction on the discussion of no subject WILLIA3I LEGGETT. Gl whatever ; but on the contrary secures, by an especial guarantee, that no prohibition or limitation of freedom of opinion and speech, in its widest latitude, shall ever be instituted. The federal government cannot directly in- terl^ere with tlie question of slavery, simply because the power of such interference is not included among those conferred upon it ; and " all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The truth is, the only restraint on the discussion of slavery is that which exists in the good sense and good feeling of the people, in their sentiments of brotherhood, and in the desire which all rational minds must entertain of accomplishing worthy ends by means every way proportioned to the object. Whoever suppo- ses that the question is guarded by any more positive obli- gation than this, has very imperfectly studied both tiie Constitution itself, and those documents which illustrate its history, and the sentiments, motives and policy of its founders. The Journal of the Convention which framed the Constitution, and those of the several State Conven- tions are happily extant. If it is true that the people of the United States are forbidden to speak their sentiments on one of the most momentous subjects which ever en- gaged their thoughts ; if they are so bound in fetters of the mind tl^at they must not allude to the less galling fetters which bind the limbs of the southern slave ; let the prohibitory passage, we pray, be quickly pointed out ; let us be convinced at once that we are not freemen, as we have heretofore fondly believed ; let us know the worst, that we may seek to accommodate our minds and break down our rebellious spirits to the restricted limits in which alone they are permitted to expatiate. But how false is the imputed acuteness for which the American people are famed, if they have overlooked this Vol. II.— 6 62 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF principle in their institutions, so deadly hostile to liberty, until now that the assertion of their supposed freedom of discussion has Called for the application of it ! Burke, long ago, speaking of America, observed, that " in other coun- tries, the people, more simple and of less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." Little is this compliment deserved at the present day, whatever may have been the case at the period when it was uttered, if we are now for the first time to discover that we have blindly entered into a compact which excludes us from an expression of our sentiments on a subject, not only of vast intrinsic interest to every freeman, but one that hangs like a portentious cloud over the destiny of our country, fraught with direst and hourly accumulating mischief, and threatening to break, sooner or later, in a fearful and desolating tempest. The approach of tyranny, if his is so, was not snuffed afar off, but it closed around us, folding us in its strong embrace, and poisoning the atmosphere with its corruption, before we were aware of our danger. Strange to say, even they who framed the Constitution, and the sages who deliberated upon it in the several State Conventions, overlooked the startling interdiction of free discussion which it is now said to enjoin. In Virginia, from whence we hear so menacing a voice, no pretence was set up, when the Constitution was adopted, that the federal compact prohibited freedom of speech on any sub- ject whatever. Nay, it was even thought, and openly expressed, by many of her wisest sons, that Congress itself had the power, in various indirect ways, to snap the shackles of the slave and give him freedem. George WILLIAM LEGGETT. 63 Mason complained in the Convention that there was no clause in the Constitution securing to the southern states their slave property, and contended that Congress might lay such a tax on slaves as would amount to manumission. Patrick Henry contended that there was nothing to " pre- vent Congress from laying a grievous and enormous tax on slaves, so as to compel owners to emancipate them rather than pay the tax." In another speech he argued that Congress would possess the power of abolishing slavery under the clause empowering it to provide for the general defence — that it might pronounce all slaves free, and had ample warrant for so doing. Various other opinions of like import were confidently expressed and eloquently nsisted upon. We refer to these passages in the debates of the Vir- ginia Convention, not as concurring in the views they take of the powers of Congress under the federal compact, but to show that it was not always considered, even in Virginia, which now speaks so authoritatively and hotly on the subject, that the "domestic relations of the south," as it softly phrases the relatioxis between master and slave, were a matter entirely fenced round from all interference beyond the boundaries of the slave states. That there is any rightful power of legislative interference in the gen- eral government, direct or indirect, or in the govern- ments of the states, we distinctly deny. But at the same time we as distinctly assert the clear unalienable right of every citizen of the United States to discuss the general subject, and for our own part shall fearlessly and fully exercise that right whenever we are not restrained by paramount considerations of amity or duty. The sense- less cry of abolitionist at least shall never deter us, nor the more senseless attempt of so puny a print as the New- York Times to show that we have deserted the demo- cratic party. The often quoted and beautiful saying of 64 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF the Latin historian, homo sum — humani nihil a me alienum pido, we apply to the poor bondman as well as to his mas- ter, and shall endeavour to fulfil towards both the obliga- tions of an equal humanity. SLAVERY NO EVIL. [From the Evening Post, Sepiemler 9, 1835.] Nothing, in these days of startling doctrines and outrageous conduct, has occurred to occasion us more surprise than the sentiments openly expressed by the southern newspapers, that slavery is not an evil, and that to indulge a hope that the poor bondman may be eventu- ally enfranchised is not less heinous than to desire his immediate emancipation. We could hardly have be- lieved, if we had not seen these sentiments expressed in the southern newspapers, that such opinions are en- tertained by any class of people in this country. But that they are both entertained and loudly promulgated, the extracts from Charleston papers which our columns contain this afternoon afford abundant and sorrowful proof. These extracts are from journals which speak the feelings and opinions of a whole community ; journals conducted with ability, by men who weigh their words before they give them breath, and seldom utter senti- ments, particularly on momentous questions, which are not fully responded to by a wide circle of readers. We have made our quotations from the Charleston Courier and Charleston Patriot ; but we might greatly extend them, did not our sickened feelings forbid, by similar passages from various other newspapers, published in various parts of the south. Slavery no evil ! Has it come to this, that the foulest stigma on our national escutcheon, which no true-hearted WILLIAMLE6GETT. 65 freeman could ever contemplate without sorrow in his heart and a blush upon his cheek, has got to be viewed by the people of the south as no stain on the American character ? Have their ears become so accustomed to the clank of the poor bondman's fetters that it no longer grates upon them as a discordant sound? Have his groans ceased to speak the language of misery? Has his servile condition lost any of its degradation ? Can the husband be torn from his wife, and the child from its parent, and sold like cattle at the shambles, and yet free, intelligent men, whose own rights are founded on the declaration of the unalienable freedom and equality of all mankind, stand up in the face of heaven and their fellow men, and assert without a blush that there is no evil in servitude ? We could not have believed that the madness of the south had reached so dreadful a climax. Not only are we told that slavery is no evil, but that it is criminal towards the south, and a violation of the spirit of the federal compact, to indulge even a hope that the chains of the captive may some day or other, no matter how remote the time, be broken. Ultimate abolitionists are not less enemies of the south, we are told, than those who seek to accomplish immediate enfranchisement. Nay, the threat is held up to us, that unless we speedily pass laws to prohibit all expression of opinion on the dreadful topic of slavery, the southern states will meet in Convention, separate themselves from the north, and esta- blish a separate empire for themselves. The next claim we shall hear from the arrogant south will be a call upon us to pass edicts forbidding men to think on the sabject of slavery, on the ground that even meditation on that topic is interdicted by the spirit of the federal compact. What a mysterious thing this federal compact must be, which enjoins so much by its spirit that is wholly omitted in its language — nay not only omitted, but which is di- 6* 66 POLITICAL WRITING SOF rectly contrary to some of its express provisions ! And they who framed that compact, how sadly ignorant they must have been of the import of tlie instrument they were giving to the world ! They did not hesitate to speak of slavery, not only as an evil, but as the direst curse inflicted upon our country. They did not refrain from indulging a hope that the stain might one day or other be wiped out, and the poor bondman restored to the condition of equal freedom for which God and nature designed him. But the sentiments which Jefferson, and Madison, and Patrick Henry freely expressed are treasonable now, according to the new reading of the federal compact. To deplore the doom which binds three millions of human beings in chains, and to hope that by some just and grad- ual measures of philanthropy, their fetters, one by one, may be unlocked from their galled limbs, till at last, through all our borders, no bondman's groan shall mix with the voices of the free, and form a horrid discord in their rejoicings for national freedom — to entertain such sentiments is treated as opprobrious wrong done to the south, and we are called upon to lock each other's mouths with penal statutes, under the threat that the south will else separate from the confederacy, and resolve itself into a separate empire. This threat, from iteration, has lost much of its terror. We have not a doubt, that to produce a disrupture of the Union, and join the slave states together in a southern league, has been the darling object, constantly and assidu- ously pursued for a long time past, of certain bad revolt-" ing spirits, v/ho, like the arch-angel ruined, think that " to reign is worth ambition, though in hell." For this purpose all the arts and intrigues of Calhoun and his followers and myrmidons have been zealously and inde- fatigably exerted. For the achievement of this object various leading prints have long toiled without intermis- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 67 sion, seeking to exasperate the southern people by daily efforts of inflammatory eloquence. For the accomplish, ment of this object they have traduced the north, misre- presented its sentiments, falsified its language, and given a sinister interpretation to every act. For the accom- plishment of this object they have stirred up the present excitement on the slave question, and constantly do all in their power to aggravate the feeling of hostility to the north which their hellish arts have engendered. We see the means with which they work, and know the end at which they aim. But w^e trust their fell designs are not destined to be accomplished. If, however, the political union of these states is only to be preserved by yielding to the claims set up by the south; if the tie of confederation is of such a kind that the breath of free discussion will inevitably dissolve it ; if we can hope to maintain our fraternal connexion with our brothers of the south only by dismissing all hope of ultimate freedom to the slave ; let the compact be dis- solved, rather than submit to such dishonourable, such inhuman terms for its preservation. Dear as the Union is to us, and fervently as we desire that time, while it crumbles the false foundations of other governments, may add stability to that of our happy confederation, yet ra- ther, far rather would we see it resolve into its original elements to-morrow, than that its duration should be effected by any measures so fatal to the principles of freedom as those insisted upon by the south. These are the sentiments of at least one northern jour- nal ; and these sentiments we shall intermit no occasion of urging with all the earnestness of our nature and all the ability we possess. It is due to ourselves, and it is no less due to the south, that the north should speak out plainly on the questions which the demands of the for- mer present for our decision. On this subject boldness 68 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF and truth are required. Temporizing, like oil upon the waters, may smooth the billows for a moment, but can- not disperse the storm. Reasonable men and lovers of truth will not be offended with those who speak with bold- ness what reason and truth conspire to dictate. " As for the drummers and trumpeters of faction," to use the language of Lord Bolingbroke, " who are hired to drown the voice of truth in one perpetual din of clamour, and would endeavour to drown, in the same manner, even the dying groans of their country, they deserve no answer but the most contemptuous silence. REGULATION OF COAL. [From the Evening Post, Sept. 10, 1835.] A COPY of the petition of the Corporation of this city, on the subject of the law regulating the sale of anthracite coal, has been laid before us, and is worthy of a remark. The petition desires that such an alteration of the exist- ing law may be made as shall permit the purchaser to choose for himself whether he will have his coal weighed by an appointed weigher or not. Nothing can be more indisputably reasonable than this. Those who claim that municipal authorities ought to exercise their powers for the regulation of trade, and establish inspectors, guagers, weighers and supervisors, of various kinds, to see that tradespeople do not cheat their customers in quality, strength, weight, or quantity, yet cannot, we should suppose, be so utterly blind to the natural rights of the citizen, as to require that he should not be permitted to cheat himself, if he prefers to do so. For our own part, as our readers well know, we are opposed to the whole system of legislative interference with trade, which we wish to see left to its own laws, un- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 69 fettered by any of the clogs and hinderances invented by political fraud and cunning, to extract indirect taxes from the community, and contrive offices with which to reward the selfish exertions of small-beer politicians. We should be glad to see the whole tree, root and branch, destroyed. We should be glad if the whole oppressive and aristocratic scheme of inspection and guaging, whether existing un- der the General Government, or that of the state, or of the citv, were utterly abroo-ated. We should be "[lad to see the custom-house swept off into the sea, and the whole army of collectors, surveyors, tide-waiters, and lick-spit- tles, of various denominations, swept off with it — or at least compelled to resort to some other method of obtain- ing a livelihood. We should be glad if the inspectors of beef, flour, pork, cotton, tobacco, wood, charcoal and an- thracite, and all their brother inspectors, too numerous to mention, were made to take up the line of march, and follow their file leaders into some more democratic species of avocation. The land, freed from this army of incu- buses, and from the bad laws which give them being, would then blossom as the rose under the genial influence of free trade ; and then it would be found, we do not doubt, from the alacrity with which the people would bear direct taxation for all the necessary purposes of government, that there was never any reason for the anomaly we have presented in resorting to indirect means for obtaining the public resources, as if the popular virtue and intelli- gence, on which our institutions are professedly founded, existed but in name, and the necessary expenses of gov- ernment could only be obtained from the people by some method which prevented them from seeing what they paid. But putting these ultra views, as some may consider them, entirely out of sight, there cannot be two opinions, one would think, as to tlie entire propriety of the request now made to the city legislature by the petition to which 70 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF we have alluded. There are many persons who have greater confidence in the coal dealers than in the public weighers, and we know of no just reason why they should be prohibited by law from indulging their preference. [From the Evening Post, September 19, 1835.] EXTREMES UNITE. From the Washington Globe, of yesterday. " The Evening Post has, on various occasions, shown a disposition to fly off* from the democratic party, by running into extremes. Upon the Tariff* it knew no medium. It was free trade, without a reference to the policy of other nations. In regard to Banks no account to be taken of the actual condition of things in the country, but a universal and immediate annihilation was the tendency of all the Post's arguments. The spirit of agrarianism was perceivable in all the political views of the editor, and it seemed as if he was inclined to legis- late altogether upon abstractions, and allow the busi- ness of the world and the state of society to have noth- ing to do with it. This Eutopian temper in the Post was perpetually running the Editor's head against a post — some established land-mark set up by the experience and good sense of the people to designate the diff'erent in- terests among us and the principles by which they were to be protected. In its warfare upon the settled princi- ples of Democracy, the Post has ever and anon found itself at loggerheads with the organs which have long been accustomed to reflect the public sentiment. The Richmond Enquirer — the Albany Argus, and other standard republican prints, have been successively the WILLIAM LEGGETT. 71 object of its attack. Finally, the Post, as if eager to break with the party to which it has assumed to be devoted, has assailed the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Postmaster General. All this might possibly be set down to individual caprice — a sort of in- nocent ostentation, by way of displaying the independence of the editor. But he has at last (and we are glad of it) taken a stand which must forever separate him from the democratic party. His journal now openly and syste- matically encourages the Abolitionists. In this, he attacks the compromise which was the foundation of the Union, and commits outrage upon the most devotedly cherished feelings of the whole democracy of the Union. The abolition conspiracy is worse than nullification. The latter only contemplates a dissolution of the Union. The scheme of the Abolitionists involves the destruction of the Confeaeracy, and brings with it also, as a foretaste, the horrors of a servile and civil war. As this is the tendency of the Post's present course, it must be content, hereafter, to be numbered among those journals with which its extravagance lias associated it. The abolition faction is the natural ally of the Nullification and Hart- ford Convention factions ; and while the Post, as a jour- nal, acts with the former, the Democracy will class it with the Telegraphs, the Telescopes, the royal Americans, the Stone and Dwight Advertisers of the day." We lose no time in placing the foregoing article con- spicuously before our readers, and shall willingly part from such as fall off from us in consequence of the ex- communication pronounced by the Washington Globe. But they who shall stand by us through the evil report, as they have stood by us through the good report of that paper, and as they stood by us long before that paper had existence, shall have ample occasion to acknowledge that our democracy is of too steadfast a kind to bo driven off 72 POLITICAL WEITINGSOF even by the revilings of those who profess the same po- litical creed with ourselves and act as accredited organs of our party. The principles which govern us in relation to all political questions are such as insure our permanent continuance with the real democracy of the land ; and as the reputation of this journal was in no degree the re- sult of any assistance which it ever derived from the Washington Globe, so we may be permitted to hope that its surcease will not be occasioned by the countenance of that print being withdrawn. There are certain leading principles in politics which constitute the cynosure by which the course of this jour- nal is guided. The universal political equality of man- kind, the intelligence and integrity of the great mass of the people, and the absolute right of a majority to govern, are the fundamental articles of our belief. These actuate us in every movement now, and we trust will continue to actuate us to the Icist moment of our lives. The politi- cal theories which rest on these principles as their basis, though they may sometimes ascend beyond the line of prudence, can never overtop the 'altitude of truth, but in their most airy elevation will securely lean against that steadfast and eternal support. We very much regret that the Globe has taken upon itself to denounce this journal, and to give all who believe in its infallibility to understand that they must hereafter consider and treat the Evening Post as belonging to the common herd of the enemies of the democracy. We re- gret it, both because of the two-fold motive from which the anathema proceeds, and from a consideration of the con- sequence which it is likely to occasion. But we by no means look upon it as the worst evil which could befall us, and while we remain true to the great interests of demo- cratic freedom, we have little fear either that our own prosperity, or our just influence on public sentiment, will WILLIAM LEGGETT. 73 be materially diminished by the proscription or denuncia- tion of a party journal which, in no quality that ought to distinguish the public press, rises much above the level of ordinary party papers, and which derives all its su- periority from the mere accident of its semi-official cha- racter. We have alluded to the two-fold motive which has led the Globe to pronounce our exclusion from its list of demo- cratic newspapers. What it says about our tendency to run into extremes is for the purpose of giving a colour- able pretext for the course which undivulged motives of secret policy have prompted it to pursue. Our views on the subject of the tariff never before elicited a syllable of disapprobation from that journal. Throughout the great struggle, which involved such extensive interests, excited such angry feelings, and threatened, at one time, to sun- der the Union, the Globe, indeed, pursued a cautious silent policy, or, when it ventured to express itself at all, did so in equivocal terms, liable to a double construction, and played to perfection the part of a political Janus, turning one face to the South and the other to the North. The course of this paper on the subject of banks is wholly and we believe wilfully misrepresented by the Washington Globe, and, at any rate, this is the first time that a word of disapprobation on that subject has been expressed. It is utterly untrue, and every reader of this journal knows it is so, that we have desired a reformation of the bank system "regardless of the actual condition of things," and have insisted upon " universal and immedi- ate annihilation" of the system. The course which we have pursued in regard to banks is the same which the Globe itself, though with much less earnestness, has pur- sued ; it is the same course that has been over and over again recommended by Andrew Jackson, Thomas H. Benton, Churchill C. Cambreleng, and many others of Vol. II 7 74 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF the most prominent and soundest democrats in the land. It is the only course consistent with democratic princi- ples, and we defy the Globe to point out one sentiment in our anti-monopoly warfare in the slightest degree at va- riance with the doctrines of democracy as taught by Jefferson and illustrated by Jackson. As to the contemptible slang about Agrarianism and Utopianism, to which the Globe descends for the lack of valid objections against this journal, we deem it wholly unworthy of reply. The assertion that we have warred against <' the settled principles of democracy,'' is an un- mitigated falsehood, for which not a tittle or shadow of proof can be adduced. It is false, also, that the Rich- mond Enquirer has been attacked by us, or that we have assailed the Secretary of the Treasury any further than by mentioning the discontinuance of Treasury advertise- ments in this paper, with the presumed cause. The Secretary of the Navy we have indeed assailed, for grossly impartial and improper conduct in the case of Captain Read ; and the assault, unluckily for him, was fully justi- fied by the facts which occasioned it. We have also assailed the Postmaster General, for the official promul- gation of doctrines which strike at the root of govern- ment and public order. What we have done in relation to these two functionaries we should do again, were the same cause (which heaven forbid !) again presented ; and we know of no aegis which ought to protect their misconduct, any more than that of the humblest member of the democratic party, from the reprehension of the press. But the real two-fold motive of the Globe is perfectly understood. As far as that motive is connected with a desire to punish us for having opposed the nullifying doc- trines of Amos Kendall, we do not deem it worthy of ani- madversion, and are quite content to let matters take WILLIAMLEGGETT. 75 their own course in that respect. As far as it springs from a disposition to appease tlie south, and thus promote the interests of Mr. Van Buren in that quarter of the confederacy, we certainly do not disapprove the end, however much we may naturally shrink from the honours of martyrdom for that purpose. It has been a source of much regret to us that the discussion which has arisen between the north and south would necessarily tend to alienate in some degree, the minds of southern men from a nortliern candidate for the office of President ; and we have not doubted that, to produce this very result, the discussion was promoted, and the angriest and most imflammatory mode of disputation resorted to, by some of those en- gaged in it. Yet because dishonest politicians were endeavouring to wrest a great question to their own sin- ister purposes, we did not feel ourselves at liberty to shrink from an earnest support of what we consider the cause of truth ; much less did we feel it incumbent on us to yield to the arrogant demand of the south, that we would not only abstain from all discussion of the question of slavery, but even prohibit its discussion " by the strong arm of the law." Our duty as democrats and as freemen seemed to us to require that we should earnestly oppose this arrogant demand, the more especially as we saw but too plain denotements, in this quarter of the Union, of a dis- position to truckle to the South, for the purpose of pro- moting objects wholly inferior in importance to the great principle of free discussion. In a sincere desire that Martin Van Buren may be elected President of the United States, we are not sur- passed by the Washington Globe or any other journal in this or any other part of the Union. Not for our own behoof, in any way or shape, do we desire this, nor be- cause of any disposition favourable to our private inter- ests or feelings that it would make in either the public 76 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF offices or emoluments. We desire the success of Mr. Van Buren simply because of his intrinsic fitness for the high office of President, and for the sake of the demo- cratic principles involved in the contest. Whatever we can do to promote his election, not inconsistent with the eternal obligations of truth and justice, shall be freely and strenuously done ; and let the Washington Globe, and such of the democracy as follow its bidding, class the Evening Post with what journals they please, and despite- fully use us to any extent that their malignity prompts, we shall be found, nevertheless, always in the thickest of the fray, doing battle with all our soul and strength and understanding, under the democratic banner first unfurled by our fathers on the fourth of July 1776, the glorious motto of which is The Equal Rights of Mankind ! THE COMMITTEE AND THE EVENING POST. [From the Evening Post, Oct. 10, 1835.] The General Committee have at last fired off their big gun which they have been a long time past engaged in loading. We are not utterly exterminated by it, that is certain. We live and breathe and have our being, not- withstanding this hrutum fulmen has been launched at us. Let us pick up the spent bolt, and exhibit it to our rea- ders. Here it is : DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN GENERAL COM- MITTEE. " At a regular meeting of the Democratic Republican General Committee, held at Tammany Hall, on Friday evening, the 9th day of October, 1835, the following preamble and resolution were adoped : WILLIAM LEGGETT. 77 **Whereas, The course of the Evening Post, in continu- ing to discuss the Abolition question, in our opinion, meets the decided disapprobation of the Democracy of the City and County of New- York, and of an ov^erwhelming ma- jority of the people of the North, and is decidedly contrary to the expressed opinion and views of this Committee ; and whereas, the manner as well as the matter of its pub- lications upon that question, are in our opinion danger- ous to the peace and safety of the good people of the South, our brethren in the family of this great Republic : — Therefore, " Resolved, That the proceedings of the Democratic Republican General Committee be no longer published in the Evening Post, and that this Resolution be signed by the Chairman and Secretary, and published in the Times, Truth Teller, Jeffersonian, and the German pa- per, the New- York Gazette. " DAVID BRYSON, Chairman." " Edward Sanford, Secretary." Circumstances prevent us to-day from occupying any considerable space with comments on the foregoing ex- traordinary proceedings. It is not necessary that we should do so. The preamble and resolution carry on their face, stamped in characters which he who runs may read, and he who reads must despise, full evidence of the most crino-ing and dishonest spirit which has dictated this proceeding. This paper is proscribed — for what ? For havino- deserted democratic principles ? No. For any act of infidelity to the great cause of the people ? No. For having slackened in its zeal or industry to promote the diffusiorr of the doctrines taught and illus- trated by Jefferson and Jackson ? No. It is proscribed for being free, and for persevering in its undoubted right of free discussion. It is proscribed for considering the 7* 78 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF poor negro a man and a brother ; for deploring the hard fate which binds nearly three millions of native Ameri- cans in galling, endless, hopeless servitude ; for deploring this partly on account of the unhappy and degraded wretches themselves, but more on account of those who hold them in bonds ; for deploring it on account of the prejudicial influence which slavery exercises on the mor- als of a people, for the manifold vices which it fosters, and for the paralysing effect which it has on enterprise and industry in every walk of life. This is the reason why we are proscribed. But is not the question of abolition a party question ? No. Is it not one over which the General Committee have legitimate cognizance ? No. It is a question too wide to be infolded in the narrow span of party : it is one which they whom the Committee represent never thought of submitting to their action. As well might that com- mittee designate the religious creed of the democratic newspapers, and withdraw their countenance from all such as believed more or less than should be established as the true measure of piety by their standard, as to pro- scribe a newspaper, because, on a question of universal philanthropy, it takes a side different from that which a majority of the community have espoused. But though the question of abolition is not a party question, yet the discussion of the subject, it is thought, may exercise an unfavourable influence on the interests of Mr. Van Buren at the South. It hence becomes the policy of short-sighted and knavish partizans, who are ever ready to sacrifice the right to the expedient, not knowing that in the eyes of true philosophy they are identical, to hush up a discussion which may disaffect the slaveholder from a northern candidate for the office of President. Not being able to hush the Evening Post, which decides for itself, wholly independent of dictation / WILLIAM LEGGETT. 79 or control from any quarter, or on any subject, what to speak, and when to speak, and when to hold its peace, the next best thing to be achieved is to excommunicate it from the pale of the democratic party, and thus show the slaveholders that no advocate for universal emancipation — no journal which has a real veneration for the glorious declaration that all men are born with certain unaliena- ble rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, — is counted, at the north, as belonging to the democratic party ! The day will come, nor is it far off, when those who compose the majority of the present General Committee will blush for their proceeding of last night. Let Mr. Van Buren be elected through the base, paltry, truckling policy which his friends are exhibiting ; and before his administration terminates he will have reason to lament that his northern supporters had not more strictly guided themselves by the only true rule of action, in politics as well as in ordinary affairs of life, that honesty is the best 'policy. Should Mr. Van Buren succeed by keeping down the slavery discussion for a while, it will only break forth with renewed violence after he is elected, and make his whole term of office one scene of rude commotion and perplexity. The question must sooner or later be met, and met boldly. No northern president can ever guide the affairs of this great nation in peace while slavery exists. The discussion at the south has been got up at the present time, in some measure, no doubt, by nullifiers and heated opponents of Mr. Van Buren, for the purpose of defeating his election. But the question, whenever raised, and for whatever object, should always be promptly and boldly met by the presses and the people of the north. Such, at all events, being our opinion, we shall con- tinue to discuss the momentous topic, notwithstanding 80 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP the proscription of the General Committee, and with zeal neither inflamed nor abated by that extraordinary pro- ceeding. FREE FERRIES AND AN AGRARIAN LAW. [Fro7n the Evening Post, Oct. 10, 1835.] The American, some few days since, in an editorial article, expressed itself in favour of the establishment of free ferries at the public expense. A correspondent of that paper, a day or two afterwards, proposed the esta- blishment, at the public expense, of free carriages to carry people about the city. Both propositions were serious, not ironical. We have not the papers at hand in which they were contained, but believe we do not mistake the purport of the two articles. Now it seems to us that, the epithet agrarian, which the American has sometimes applied to this journal, was never so much deserved by any political theory we have advanced, as it is by that paper for the projects referred to. Let us confine our- selves, however, to that which was editorially asserted, namely, the one relative to free ferries, for which we may justly hold the American responsible. This, we cer- tainly think can be demonstrated to be agrarian, accord- ing to the sense in which that term is employed by poli- ticians of the present day. The agrarian law of Rome was a law to provide for the equitable division of conquered lands among those who conquered them. It was not altogether unlike our laws for the distribution of prize money ; though far more just than they, according to our recollections of its provisions. But the charge of agrarianism, as applied reproachfully at the present day to the radical democracy, imputes to them a desire to throw down the boundaries of private f WILLIAM LEGGETT. 81 right, and make a new and arbitrary division of property. This charge so far as relates to this journal, and so far, as we sincerely believe, as '\i relates to any considerable number of individuals, of any name or sect, in our coun- try, has no foundation in truth. Of our own political doctrines we can truly say that they are in every feature the very opposite of agrarianism. They rest, indeed, on the basis of inviolable respect for private right. We would not have even the legislature take private property, except for the public good, directly, not incidentally ; and then only in the clearest cases, and by rendering the most equitable compensation. We would never have it delegate that power to any private corporation, on the ground that the public good would be incidentally promo- ted by the doings of such a body. But the American, in becoming the advocate of free ferries, leans to agrarianism, in the popular and justly odious sense of the word. It takes the property of A. and gives it to B, It proposes to bestow a valuable gra- tuity on such persons as have occasion to use the ferry, and pay for this gratuity, for the most part, with money filched from the pockets of those who never step foot in a ferry-boat. Is this not clearly unjust ? Is it not to some extent, an agrarian scheme ? The American may answer us that it is but an extension of the same power, the rightfulness of which nobody ever calls in question, which is exercised by all municipal cor- porations in constructing streets at the public expense, for the gratuitous accommodation of all who choose to use them. Even this power in its nature is agrarian, and is submitted to by universal assent, not because it is right in principle, but because its conveniences overba- lance the theoretic objections. But there is a point where the objections equal the conveniences, and to in- sist on any scheme which lies beyond that point, is to 82 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF run the risk of being called, with justice, agrarian. Every body has more or less occasion to use the streets ; and therefore every body ought to contribute towards the ex- pense of making and preserving them. This expense is taken out of the general fund derived from taxes. The burden of taxes falls, directly or indirectly, on every body, and if not in the precise proportion of relative advantage from the use of the streets, still the difference is too slight to awaken complaint. But the case is widely different with regard to ferries. Thousands of citizens never use them at all ; yet according to the agrarian scheme of the American, they would be required to pay as much for supporting them as those who cross the river a dozen times every day. They would find their advantage, the American might argue, in the greater cheapness of mar- ket commodities, the increased number of customers to the city traders, and the general improvement of the city. But this advantage would not be diffused equally, and whatever is done by legislation should tend to the equal benefit of all. But where would the American stop ? If free ferries are of advantage, why would not free markets be also ? And free warehouses 1 And free dwelling houses ? And free packet ships? And in short free from every thing? The arguments by which alone the American can support its theory of free ferries, are equally pertinent and cogent in defence of a literal commonwealth. Who would have thought to see the American turn so ultra an agrarian ? Now, our theory with respect to ferries is liable to no such objections. It is precisely the same as our theory with respect to banks, with respect to railroads, and with respect to every other branch of trade and enterprise. Our theory is the free trade theory. It is simply to leave trade alone to govern itself by its own laws. Ferries are as much a matter of trade, as Broadway stages, or Broad- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 83 way shopkeeping. Leave the subject open to unrestricted competition. Leave men to run boats where they please, when they please, and how they please, with no other re- straint upon them than such municipal regulations as may be requisite for the preservation of public order — some simple rules, such as" turn to the right, as the law directs.'' When this course is pursued, we shall have ferry boats where they are wanted, and as many as are wanted, and no more. People will not run more boats than yield a fair profit on investment, and where competition is free there will certainly be as many. The ferries, then, be- tween New-York and Long Island, and between New- York and New-Jersey, will be as well conducted, and as well supplied with boats, as are the ferries now between New-York and Albany. This is our scheme : how does the American like it ? The difference between us is that we are for leaving ferries to the regulation of the laws of trade ; the Ameri- can is for controlling them by Agrarian law.* FANCY CITIES. [From the Evening Post, Sept. 14, 1836.] A TRAVELLER, oncc, in Indiana, on setting out early one morning from the place where he had passed the night, consulted his map of the country, and finding that a very considerable town called Venice, or Verona, or Vienna, or by the name of some other European city, be- ginning with a Vj occupied a point on his road but some * It may be proper to state again here what lias been already noticed in the Preface, that Mr. Leggett was attacked by a very severe and protracted illness in October 1835. He did not return to the paper till the fall of the next year. 84 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF twelve or fifteen miles off, concluded to journey as far as that place before breakfast. Another equally exten- sive town, bearing as sounding a name, was laid down at a convenient distance for his afternoon stage ; and there he proposed halting for the night. He continued to travel at a good round pace until the sun had attained a great height in heaven, and until he computed that he had accomplished more than twice or thrice the distance which he proposed to himself in the outset. His sto- mach had long since warned him that it was time to halt, and his horse gave indications which plainly showed that he was of the same opinion. Still he saw no town be- fore him, even of the humblest kind, much less such a magnificent one as his map had prepared him to look for. At length, meeting a solitary wood-chopper emerging from the forest, he accosted him, and inquired how far it was to Vienna. " Vienna !" exclaimed the man, « why you passed it five and twenty miles back : did you not notice a stick of hewn timber and a blazed tree beside the road? That was Vienna." The dismayed traveller then inquired how far it was to the other place, at which he designed passing the night. « Why you are right on that place now," returned the man ; " it begins just the other side of yon ravine, and runs down to a clump of girdled trees which you will see about a mile further on the road." " And are there no houses built ?" faltered out the traveller, who began to suspect that, as the song says — " The heath this night must be his bed." *' Oh, no houses whatsomever," returned the woodman ; " they hewed and hauled the logs for a blacksmith's shop, but before they raised it the town lots were all disposed of in the eastern states, and every thing has been left just as you now see it ever since." WILLIAM L E G G E T T . 85 It is pretty much in the same way that things arc left, at the present time, in this portion of the country. If any one should make a map of the lands lying within the compass of some thirty or forty miles from this city, and embrace in it all the improvements, projected as well as actually existing, the spectator, who does not know the true condition of the country, would be astonished at the appearance of dense population which it would present. Cities, towns and villages would be represented as lying scattered around him at every step. The intermediate slips of unoccupied ground would seem hardly large enough even to furnish pasture for the stray cattle of the surrounding towns, much less to supply their inhabitants with all the necessary products of agricultural consump- tion. We hear no more, now-n-days, of a farm being sold, as a farm, in the vicinity of the city. The land is all divided into lots of a hundred feet by twenty-five ; and it would seem as if, in the visions of spec dators, a dense city must soon extend from the Atlantic ocean to the lakes, and from the Hudson river to the borders of Con- necticut. One of the most curious circumstances connected with the universal rage for speculation is the exceeding gulli- bility of the people. No scheme seems to be too vast to stagger their credulity. The most impracticable plans are received as easy of accomplishment, and the most stu- pendous projec'^s are entered upon with undoubting con- fidence, as if they were " trifles light as air." The thought obtrudes itself, apparently, into no man's mind, that there is a stopping place where all this rapid motion must cease — that the machine, urged to too great velocity, will at last fall to pieces. No one seems to anticipate that there must come a time when tiie towering fabric which speculation is building up, grown too huge for its foundation, will topple on the heads of its projectors, and Vol. II.— 8 86 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF bury them in its ruins. Every one acts as if there were no fear that the explosion would take place while he is in danger. Each one stretches out his hand to grasp his share of the gambler's spoils, without any idea that, like fairy money, it may turn to worthless rubbish in his hands. A general infatuation has siezed the minds of the community, and each one grows wilder in his lunacy from listening to the ravings of those around him. In the meanwhile the speculators would indeed seem to have discovered the Midas art. Their touch turns every thing to gold. They are all getting rich. One buys the refusal of a farm for a vast deal more than it is intrinsically worth. He sells it to another for a large advance, before the term of payment has arrived. The second sells it to a third, the third to a fourth ; and in this way it probably passes through a dozen hands, be- fore the first instalment of the original price is paid. Each successive purchaser fancies himself rich, and the one into whose possession the property falls last has magnificent plans in prospect, and thinks that he is richest of all. But pay day must come, and come ere long, we fear, to many an unprepared speculator, and rudely wake him from his dream of fancied wealth. The vast and sudden increase which the paper money circulation of this country has undergone within the last eighteen months is the cause of the feverish thirst of riches which the community now exhibits ; and whatever shall check that circulation, and turn it back upon the banks, will arrest the disease, but arrest it with a violence that to many will prove fatal, and give a fearful shock to all. Paper money is, to the people of this country, the insane root that takes the reason prisoner ; and they can be restored to sanity only by withholding such stimula- ting and dangerous aliment. As it now is, their appetite grows by what it feeds on. The demand for money in- WILLIAMLEGGETT. 87 creases with each succeeding day ; and every new loan of bank credit but gives rise to new projects of specula- tion, each wilder and more chimerical than the last. The effect of this pervading spirit of speculation (or spirit of gambling, as it might with more propriety be called, for it is gambling, and gambling of the most despe- rate kind) on the morals of the community is dreadful. Its direct and manifest tendency is to blunt men's moral perceptions, and accustom them by degrees to arts and devices of traffic which an honest, unsophisticated mind* would shrink from with horror as frauds of the most fla- gitious dye. It creates a distaste for the ordinary pur- suits of industry ; it disinclines the mind from gradual accumulation in some regular vocation, and kindles an in- tense desire, like that expressed in the prayer of Ortogal of Basra, " Let me grow suddenly rich !" To this gam- bling spirit of the age we may directly trace the most of those prodigious frauds the discovery of which has re- cently startled the public mind. " Startled the public mind," did we say ? The phrase is wrong. The public were not startled. They heard the stories with the most stoical indifference ; and if any exclamations were ut- tered, they conveyed rather a sentiment of commisera- tion for the criminals, than one of detestation for their stupendous crimes. But the day of the madness of speculation is drawing to a close. The time must come, nor can it be remote, when some financial or commercial revulsion will throw back the stream of paper circulation to its source, and many a goodly vessel, which had ventured too boldly on the current, will be left by the reflux stranded on its shores. Circumstances may yet defer the evil day for awhile, but it cannot be far ofl'. A failure of the cotton crop, a slight reduction of prices in Europe, or any one of the thousand contingencies to which trade is perpetu. 88 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF ally liable, will give a ^ hock to the widely expanded cur- rency of the country, which will be felt with ruinous force through every vein and artery of business. Wo unto them in that day who do not now take timely caution. Their cities and towns and villages, which they are now so fertile in planning, as if they thought men might be multiplied as rapidly as paper money, will remain un- tenanted and di solate mem >: ia s of their madness, and the voice of sorrow and mou'. nin , instead of the din of present unreal prosperity, will be heard through the land. COPY RIGHT LAAV NO MONOPOLY. « [From the Evening Post of Sept. 27, 1836.] Some of the newspapers, we perceve, are treating the subject of a copy-right law, as if such laws were grants of monopolies, and rested on precisely the same princi- ples with enactments conferring exclusive trading privi- leges, as banks, insurance companies, and the like. This is a very erroneous view of the matter. A copy- right law instead of being a monopoly, is the very re- verse. A monopoly is a legislative grant, to an indivi- dual or association, of exclusive or peculiar privileges or immunities denied to the rest of the community. A copy-right law, on the other hand, confers no new privi- lege or immunity, but absolutely takes away a portion of an author's right of property in a work of his own crea- tion, and renders no equivalent, excep' the mere guard- ino^ the remainder with s« n e special provisions. It would be far more proper to call the laws securing to men their rights of property in land monopolies, than those which protect authors and inventors in the produc- tions of their intellectual industry and ingenuity. The rights of property in land are not natural rights. By \ WILLIABI LEGGETT. 89 nature, we are all heirs in common of the earth, as well as of the air and ocean. The origin of individual rights of territory may all be traced, either to the lawless rapa- city of might, or the arbitrary enactments of incompe- tent legislative authorities. The letters patent of an ig- norant monarch have granted away a whole continent to the discoverers, though that continent was already in the occupation of numerous tribes of human beings. Such grants may with some propriety be called monopo- lies. But an author's right of property in his productions rests on a juster basis. In all ages and all nations of the world, the right of an individual to the creations of his own labour or skill have always been considered sacred. Even the Indians, who hold their hunting grounds in common, and admit of no arbitrary divisions or appropri- ations of territory among the members of their tribes, re- spect each other's exclusive claim to the creations of their own efforts, to that species of property which owes its value to individual labour and skill. Thus the red hunter, who ranges free over the face of the earth, who would spurn the idea of being shut in by fences, and mock the claims of personal possession ; yet respects the rights of his fellows in their bows and arrows, which they shape from the reeds and saplings ; in their wigwams, which they construct of the trees of the forest ; and in the wam- pum and moccasins, which are woven by their own in- genuity. On the same basis rests an author's right of property in the book which he draws from the resources of his mind, and prepares with labour both of the hand and the head. On the same basis, also, rests the rififht of the inventor to the productions of his ingenuity. These are natural rights, not rights created by law ; not rights growing out of kingly grants, or the preponderance of might over justice. 8* 90 POLITICAL WHITINGS OF But society, to promote the benefit of the mass, de- prives the individual of this inherent natural and per- petual right, after a limited period of time ; and the '»n- ly consideration which it renders in return for the usur- pation, is to guard him in the exclusive possession and advantages of his property for the short space he is per- mitted to retain it. In doing this, however, it does no more for the author, than it is its duty to do for the pos- sessor of every species of property, the grand object for which all government is framed, being to protect men in the peacful enjoyment of life, limb and property. To the author and inventor, then, the law grants no exclu- sive privilege but curtails them of a natural right — limits them to a few years in the possession of property whol- ly created by themselves, to which, without such limita- tion, their claim would be of the same enduring charac- ter, as the mechanic's is to the results of his skill, or the farmer's to the products of his industry. Such being the facts, is it not manifestly absurd to call the copy-right law or the patent-law a monopoly 1 THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. [From the Evening Post, Sept. 28, 1836.] Our paper, yesterday afternoon, contained gratifying evidence of such prompt and active public spirit, on the part of a portion of our fellow-citizens, in relation to the condition in which the community are placed by the re- cent unworthy conduct of a great number of the firemen, as affords strong assurance that, in the event of a confla- gration, adequate efforts will be made to extinguish it. Volunteer companies, by the pot neous and energetic action of the highly respectable men composing them, have been already formed to take charge of the engines WILLIAM LEGGETT. 91 dcerterl by their former crews. These new companies incliidins' among them citizens whose heads are blanched w h years, come forward wit ; n 1 onourable pledge, that they will unite cordially with the Fire Department, ren- dering all the assistance in their power to extinguish whatever fir s ni y occur, and discharging the duties which may be assigned to them with alacrity and subor- dinatio . Among those who have distinguished t!.emse'\es in this manner, and earned the thanks of their fellow-citi- zens, we notice the proceedings of a meeting in the fourth ward, composed, in part, of old firemen, exempt from fur- ther duty by reason of their having performed the term of service required by law. At the head of these is Mr. Daniel Berria'^, who officiated as Chairman of t e meet- ing. Mr. Berrian is an old and respectable inhabi ant of the fourth ward, a mnn in affluent circumsta ces, and considerably advanced in years. Yet, after a life of use- fiil toi', he does not hesita e to come forw ird in his old age, to resume the arduous duties of a fireman, from which he long since exem t d himse f by a full and ac- tive discharge of all the required services, and to rebuke, by his example, the concerted rebellion of those who, from dissatisfaction with the Common Council, whether well or ill founded, did not he it te to leave, as they thought an : hoped, the city defenceless against its most danger- ous scourge. Such conduct as Mr. Berrian and his as. sociates display, richly deserves the approbation of the community, and stands in noble contrast with that of the recusant firemen. We see it stated in some of the newspapers that a por- tion of the firemen who have abandoned their places as- sembled at the fire yesterday, at the corner of Anthony and Centre-streets, and not content with having (with- drawn their own aid from the Fire Department, attempted 92 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF to frustrate the exertions of others, who were not dispos- ed to see the city again desolated by a conflagration. Some of the ringleaders in this most wicked riot were ap- prehended, and are now in close custody. We trust that no mistaken views of policy or false sympathy may lead to their enlargement till they have been made the subject of exemplary punishment. Let not those laws, which the tribunals are ready enough to enforce against a com- bination of poor journeymen tailors, who had no worse object in view than to coerce their employers into the payment of increased wages, now lie a dead letter, when a more formidable combination is committing outrages which tend directly to the overthrow of all security both of j»roperty and life. It is most earnestly to be hoped that the opportunity presented by existing circumstances, in relation to the means possessed by the city for the extinguishing of fires, will be turned to its best use in the total revision and re- formation of the system which has heretofore been in use. The public attention is now directed with strong inter- est to the subject, and the public sense demands the adop- tion of some plan which will not subject the city to be ex- posed a prey to unresisted conflagration, whenever a ca- pricious body of volunteers shall find or fancy cause of oflence in the proceedings of the municipal authorities. There is no reason, that we are aware of, why the fire- men should not be a regularly organized corps of paid men, enlisted by the City Government for a fixed period, and subject to coercive regulations. The protection of the lives and property of the citizens against conflagra- tion is as legitimate an office of government, as their protection against the midnight robber and murderer, or ao-ainst any of those disorde rs for which the police is in- stituted. As well might our marshals and constables, or the watchmen who guard our streets at night, or any WILLIAM lEGGETT. 93 other class of men who render a laborious public service be composed of persons doing volunteer duty, as the fire- men. And as well might they, for rendering such ser- vice, be exempted, like the firemen, from the list of jurors. It might then happen that the Common Coun- cil, by some appointment or removal, or some other act, performed with a single view to the public good, should give offence, simultaneously, to a leading or popular watchman, fireman, and police officer. In what condi- tion would the city be left, if, in consequence of a rebel- lious combination, it should at once b ) s r'pt cf all its de- fences against fire, robbery, tumult and secret crime ? If the duty of the Fire Department were entrusted to a duly organized corps of men, compensated for their ser- vices with a suflScient stipend, and subject to frequent drills and training s, and all the proper measures of dis- cipline, we should have, in the place of a riotous and licentious body, one that would act with both celerity and decorum, and, in discharging their duties, no further interrupt the quiet of the ci!y than would be inevitable from the nature of the service they perform. The shrieks and shouts and hoarse bellowings, from a hundred clamorous throats, which now accomp y every engine, and scare sleep from the lids of the startled inhabitants far around, would then be heard no more ; and nothing but the rattling of the wheels, and the necessary words of command from duly appointed officers, would br ak in upon the stillness of the night. There is one consideration conected with this subject to which we briefly alluded a few days ago, and which, we think, deserves the attention of the p ihlic authorities : the ir. proper character of the immunity extended to the firem ;n in exempting them from duty as jurors. What- ever diminii-hes the list of respect;>ble persons liaMe to render that important i^ervice to the community, impairs, 94 POLITICALWRITINGS OF ) in some degree or other, the validity of the great bul- wark of our rights — the trial by a jury of twelve peers, taken promiscuously from the whole body of citizens. In a new organization of the Fire Department, it is to be hoped no such privilege will be admitted. WOOD INSPECTION. [From the Evening Post, October 6, 1836.] A GENTLEMAN of this City, not long since, having occa- sion to cut down tho trees upon a piece of woodland which he owned at a short distance in the country, con- cluded to send them to his town-house, in his own farm waggon, and deposit them in his cellar for his winter fuel. He was met on the way by one of that army of municipal officers, called wood-inspectors, who forbade him to pro- ceed until the loads were inspected, the number of cords ascertained, and the amount of the inspection-fees paid. It was in vain that he remonstrated, telling the man that the wood was from his own farm, for his own use, and conveyed to the city in his own vehicle. The inexorable inspector turned a deaf ear to all his arguments, and only reiterated, " my fees ! my fees ! " And it was only on paying the fees, and having his wood duly measured, that the gentleman was permitted to proceed on his way. This is only one of numerous illustrations we might give of the beauties of that system of taxation which forces people to pay enormous duties on the prime necessaries of life for the support of an idle and useless herd of office- holders. There never was a more gratuitous and tyrannical im- position on the community than those municipal laws which make it obligatory on every citizen to employ a public officer to measure his wood and weigh his coal. WILLIAM LKGGETT. 95 We have no objection that there should be public weigh- ers and measurers for those who choose to employ them, for those who have not confidence enough in the persons with wliom they deal to trust to their honesty, or who are too indolent or too busy to attend to their own busi- ness. These may make use of inspectors in welcome, and pay them their fees, or what sum they think proper, for their services. But we do contend against that prin- ciple of legislation, which, for the accommodation of these distrustful or indolent people, imposes on the whole pub- lic the obligation to pay an equal sum for services they would much rather dispense with. We ourselves, for example, stand in no need of any such intermediary agency. We can trust the dealer from whom we pur- chase our coal and wood, or otherwise we can stand and see that due weight and measurement are given, and do not thank any corporation officer to meddle with our af- fairs, and demand a fee for his interference. The aggregate amount of this unjust tax in this city is very great, and the burden falls very heavily on some classes of the community. Why should it not be at once repealed ? Can any one give any good reason why our wood and coal inspection laws should not be effaced from the statute book ? Is there a single class of persons, save only the office-holders themselves, who fatten on these spoils of a rifled community, that would have the least reason to complain of such an abrogation? Would not the citizens at large, rich and poor, be benefited by the rescinding of those absurd enactments ? There can be but one answer to these questions. Would that the Com- mon Council could be induced to act according to the purport of that reply. 96 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF CAUSES OF FINANCIAL DISTRESS. [From the Evening Post, October M, 1836.] The fina icial storm Ion 4 si ice predicted by this jour- nal has at last com uenccd in good earnest a id bs-ins now to be severely felt. For a considerable time past a pressure for money has been experienced in this me- tropolis, and within a few days it has increased to a de- gree which has made it the su'>ject of general conversa- tion and complaint. Men now perceive that their pro- jects, sustained on the airy basis of too widely extended credit, are in danger of sudden ruin. A sense of general insecurity is awakened, and alarm and consternation are taking the place of that fool-hardy spirit of speculation, which, but a little while ago, kept hurrying on from one mad scheme to another, as if it possessed the fabbd art of turning all it touched into gold. A commercial revul- sion has commenced, and we fear will not terminate, till it has swept like a tornado over the land, and marked its progress by the wrecks scattered in its path. It is always to be expected in this country, when any thing occurs to create extensive dissatisfaction, that newspaper writers, on one side or the other, will strive to turn it to the uses of party ; and we accordingly find, in the present instance, that the opposition journals seize the subject of the financial difficulties as a theme for decla- mation against the government, and ascribe all our pecu- niary embarrassments to the mal-administration of pub- lic affairs. Some, with singular contempt for the under- standing of their readers, deal in mere generalities, and, in all the worn out common places of the political slang vocabulary, denounce the administration as composed of a set of ignorant " tinkers of the currency," or fraudulent speculators, who interfere with the financial arrangements WILLIAM LEGGETT. 97 of the country, for the purposes of private gain, perfectly- regardless of the wide-spread ruin they may occasion. In the same spirit they call upon the merchants to close their stores and counting-rooms, and go out into the streets as political missionaries, devoting themselves exclusively, for the next twenty days, to the business of electioneering, with a view of putting down a corrupt administration, which is forever trying high-handed experiments with the currency, and obstructing the sources of commercial prosperity. The day has been when the mercantile men of this community suffered themselves to be inflamed by such appeals, and acted in pursuance of such advice. But we trust that day is past, never to return. Another portion of the opposition papers, ^\'ith more respect for the intelligence of their readers, endeavour to fortify their charges against the administration by ex- plaining the mode in which they conceive it to be the au- thor of the present difficulties. By some of these, all the embarrassments of the money market are traced to the order of the Treasury Department, requiring payment for public lands to be made in specie. This may do very well as a reason to be urged by those wise journalists who are ever ready to shape their political economy to the exigencies of party ; but will hardly satisfy readers of so much intelligence as to demand that the cause shall be adequate to the effect. Any one who will give the slightest attention to the statistics of the land sales, and who will reflect what a vast amount of purchase an in- considerable sum in specie will pay, in its necessarily constant and rapid circulation from the land office to the neighbouring bank, and from the bank back to the land office, must be perfectly satisfied that the regulation in question cannot have had any perceptible effect in pro- ducing the general financial pressure now experienced. There is a third class of opposition writers who, like Vol. II._9 98 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF the others, imputing all the difficulties to the administra- tion, yet find out an entirely different and much more adequate cause. These impute it entirely to the Trea- sury orders, issued to various banks in different parts of the Union against the public funds collected on deposite in the banks of this city. By the natural course of trade, New- York is the great money market and storehouse of bullion for the entire confederacy. At this port, four- fifths of the whole revenue of the country are collected, and would here accumulate, affording a substantial basis of credit and reciprocal accommodation to those who pay it, were it not for that " tinkering with the currency" which subverts the natural order of things. To this ex- tent we sincerely go with those who are declaiming against the government. We agree with them that the condition of affairs, as established by the laws of trade, is deranged by government interference, and that the trea- sury orders, which have the effect to cause a sudden dis- persion of the public funds accumulated in this city, and to drain the specie from the vaults of our banks, sending it hither and thither, and for a time, entirely destroying its use, as a foundation of commercial credit, are the immediate cause of the prevailing distress. So far, the opposition writers have our concurrence ; but not one step beyond, because, further than this, they are not supported by truth. Let us look calmly at the facts, and see where justice must attach the blame. The complaint is, that Mr. Woodbury, directed perhaps by the Executive, issues Treasury Orders to banks at va- rious distant points, which they present to the banks in this city, in many cases demanding specie, thus compel- ling those institutions suddenly to retrench, and spreading consternation and ruin among the merchants. The banks themselves, it is further affirmed, if payment of these orders should continue to be demanded in specie, will soon be exhausted of every metalic dollar, and obliged i WILLIAM LEGGETT. 90 to suspend the redemption of their notes. We very much fear that there is no exaggeration in all this. But where lies the blame ? We are not content to stop at Mr. Woodbury, and shower undeserved obloquy upon him. We cannot charge it to General Jackson ; for we have no warrant for believing he would assume such a fearful responsibility. We go further than this : we go to the laws of the last Congress : we go to those enactments which make it obligatory on the Treasury Department to act as it is acting ; which leave it no discretion ; which compel it to derange the currency, to break up the foundations of commercial credit in this great city, and create all the wide-spread distress which, in the end, must result from the proceeding. One step further will show us the origin of those laws ; and there we behold the very men who are now the loudest and angriest declaimers against these consequences : the very party which is endeavouring to convert them into a fatal weapon against their opponents. To the act regulating the deposites of public money, and more particularly, to the supplementary act, passed on the last legislature day of the session^ we impute all the mischief. Both these acts were conceived, and matured, and carried into effect by the opposition, aided by such ad- ministration members as they could deceive with the illu- sory promises of advantage which the measures held out to the spirit of sectional rapacity. They considered their carrying them a great party triumph. They had public rejoicings on the occasion, with discharges of artillery, bonfires, and all the etceteras of such electioneering pa- geants. They now behold the result, or rather the com- mencement of the end. The fruit is of the tree of their planting ; if it is bitter, they have themselves to tliank. Bad as it is, we fear that worse — much worse is yet to come. 100 POLITICAL WRITINGS OV We assert that the Secretary of the Treasury cannot possibly act otherwise than he is now acting. He doubt- less sees, and knows, and laments, the consequences of the orders issued from his department ; but he has no power to withhold them. The President of the United States has no power to forbid their being issued. It is done in plain pursuance of the positive provisions of the Deposite Law and its supplementary rider — laws devised by the aristocracy, carried by the aristocracy, rejoiced at by the aristocracy. Fain would the President have in- terposed his Veto, but they were made to assume such a shape as obviated the constitutional objection, and, in the delusion of the moment, too many of the democratic party had joined their opponents to render such a step of any avail. The bills were signed — signed with a strong pre- sentiment, or rather a clear foresight of the evils they would occasion ; and the event affords another forcible illustration of the sagacity of that great man whom the people, in happy hour, selected to guide the affairs of state. Other warning voices foretold the ruin that would ensue. The views of Mr. Van Buren were well known at the time, and were immediately after very clearly ex- pressed. In the House of Representatives Mr. Cambre- leng raised his admonitory voice, and predicted the very state of things which now exists. But all in vain. The opposition drowned remonstrances with clamour. They won to their side sectional politicians by the hopes which they excited of local advantages. They carried the measure ; and now they experience its effects. Not they only, unfortunately ; but those who opposed, as well as those who supported the mad, corrupting scheme. The whole people feel the effects, and are doomed to feel them with far greater intensity before many months are past. The supplementary law to which we have alluded ren- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 101 ders it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to make " transfers from banks in one State or Territory to banks in another State or Territory, whenever such transfers may he required, in order to prevent large and inconve- nient accumulations in particular places, or in order to produce a due equality and just •proportion, according to the provisions of said acV^ — namely, the Deposite Act. The " due proportion and just equality" required by the provisions of that act, is a division, on the first of January next, of the surplus revenue among the states in proportion to their respective representation in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States ; and, in the meanwhile, the Secretary of the Treasury is directed to make transfers from state to state, according to that scale of distribution, and not to suffer to remain in any one deposite bank an amount exceeding three-fourths of its capital. Thus this wise law obliges him to stand in a posture of perpetual vigilance, and keep carting the public money about from bank to bank, the moment the course of business places in any institution a single dollar beyond the limitation of the law. The evil, then, springs from the law and those who made the law, and not from the Secretary of the Treasury. As for the fact that specie is demanded of the banks in New-York in payment of the Treasury orders, the opposition have again only their own party to thank. It is a notorious fact that a majority of the several di- rectors of nine-tenths of the banks in the United States are members of the opposition. The Treasury orders are issued in the usual form, and it is left entirely discre- tionary with the banks in whose favour they are issued to make such arrangements with the banks on which the orders are drawn as shall be most for the convenience and interest of all parties concerned. This is a matter with which the Secretary of the Treasury has, of right, 9* 102 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP nothing to do. He is bound to act according to the in- variable usage of the Department ; and if the opposition directors of a distant bank choose to demand specie of a New- York bank, for the purpose of embarrassing the in- stitution, crippling its means of accommodating its cus- tomers, and thus spread confusion and panic through the community, we know of no way in which Mr. Woodbury can interfere to prevent the result. He but obeys the provisions of a law which clearly prescribes the mode in which he is to act. That he has every disposition so to discharge his imperative duties as to mitigate as much as possible the hardship of their necessary effect on the mercantile community, no man can entertain a rea- sonable doubt. He has expressed himself, as we see sta- ted in the Journal of Commerce of this morning, ready to arrange the distribution of the surplus revenue in any manner, consistent with the law, which shall best sub- serve the interests of trade, and promote stability in the money market. That paper says, " no more drafts will be issued at present, and some already issued and trans- mitted to distant places, will be countermanded. It devolves on the deposite banks here, to point out to the Secretary the manner by which, in their opinion, the objects of the law can be most conveniently accomplish- ed." But the immediate cause of the financial embar- rassments is in the law itself, and the Secretary of the Treasury, execute its provisions in what mode he may, cannot prevent commercial distress. In the meanwhile, the condition into which the community are thrown by a few drafts upon our banks for specie, is a forcible illus- tration, added to the many which had been previously afforded, of the beauties of that banking system of exclu- sive privileges by which the people have so long suffered themselves to be oppressed. But the first, great, and all important cause of the pe. WILLIAM LEGCETT. 103 cuniary distress lies much deeper than any which the opposition papers assign. It is neither the Treasury order in relation to the public lands, nor the Treasury orders on deposite banks. These last have, at the very worst, but precipitated an evil, which, had no such orders been issued, or no transfers in any way made, could by no pcssibility have been long averted. It would have come next winter, and with a pressure greatly augmented by the delay. It would have fallen, like an avalanche, at the very season when revulsion is more fatal, because then the largest amounts of payments are to be made. The distribution law takes efTect in January, and had not the necessity of complying with the conditions of the supplementary bill given the present harsh, but salutary check to speculation, the amount of credit, now so prodi- giously inflated, would have been still further extended, and the shock of a sudden explosion would have been far more fearful and disastrous. Without the distribution bill, even, a dreadful commer- cial revulsion could not long have been avoided. We were rushing on madly at a rate which could not long be continued. The first obstacle must have thrown us from our course, and dashed us to pieces. Look at the pre- sent state of the country. When did it ever before pre- sent such a spectacle of prodigiously distended credit ? When did such a fever of speculation madden the brains of whole communities ? When did all sorts of commo- dities bear such enormous prices ? And when, at the same time, was there ever such vast consumption — such prodigality, wastefulness, and unthinking profusion ? Is the treasury order the cause of this ? Alas, it is one of its remote consequences. What filled your treasury to such overflowing, that some cunning politician was prompted by a consideration of the exuberance to devise the scheme of distribution ? Speculation. What excited 104 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP that spirit of speculation ? The sudden and enormous increase of bank capital, and the corresponding inflation of bank currency. In the last eighteen months alone nearly one hundred millions of bank capital have been added to the previous amount. Examine the following bank statistics, derived from sources believed to be accurate, and see how prodigiously and rapidly our sys- tem of bank credit has been swollen : Aggregate capital of the Banks in the United States. In the year 1811 the total amount was $52,600,000 1815 82,200,000 1816 89,800,000 1820 102,100,000 1830 " 110,200,000 1835 196,250,000 1836 (August) 291,250,000 Increase in 72me 2/ear5 preceding 1820 $49,500,000 Do. ten years 1830 8,100,000 Do. six years 1836 181,050,000 Who can look at this statement, and not feel con- vinced that the cause of the present financial distress lies deeper than treasury ©rders, whether in relation to public lands or public deposites ? This enormous increase of I bank capital in the last six years has been accompanied by a corresponding expansion of bank issues, and by a commensurate extension of private credits. The busi- ness of the country has been stimulated into most un- wholesome and fatal activity. Circumstances, unlocked for, have occurred to aggravate the epidemic frenzy. The government has obtained the payment of long de- layed indemnities from foreign powers ; and new formed corporations have contracted large loans abroad. These sums, added to the product of our staples, have been ex- hausted by the excessive importations. Domestic specu- lation — speculation in the products of home consumption, WILLIAM LEGGETT. 105 in land, in town lots, in houses, in stock enterprises, in every thing, has kept pace, step for step, with the inordi- nate increase of foreign trade. What is to pay all this vast accumulation of debt ? It must come at last out of labour. It must come from the products of industry. We have been borrowing largely of the future, and have at last arrived at the point where we must pause, and wait fox the farmer, the mechanic, and patient hewer of wood and drawer of water to relieve us from our diffi- culties. Reader, take home to your bosom this truth, and pon- der well upon it, it is the bank system of this country, our wretched, unequal, undemocratic system of special privileges, which occasions the difficulty we now begin to feel. It is not pretended that under the free trade sys- tem of credit, or under anv svstem, commercial revulsions would not sometimes, and to some extent, take place. ^They are incident to the nature of man. Prosperity be- gets confidence ; confidence leads to rashness ; the ex- ample of one is imitated by another ; and the delusion spreads until it is suddenly dissipated by some of those rude collisions, which are the unavoidable penalties of a violation of the laws of trade. But such fearful and fa- tal revulsions as mark the eras of the commercial history of this country, would not, could not, take place under a free trade svstem of banking-. It is when ignorant legislators pretend to define bylaw the limits of credit and shaking at one time with unne- cessary trepidation refuse to enlarge them to the wants of trade, while at another they extend them far beyond all reasonable scope — it is when such " tamperers with the currency" attempt to control what is in its nature un- controllable, and should be free as air, that revulsion, panic, and commercial prostration necessarily ensue. While we have restraining laws and specially chartered 106 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP baDks, we shall have periodical distress in the money market, more or less severe, as the period has been hastened or delayed by accidental causes. Party writers may at one time lay every disorder to the removal of the deposites, and at another to a treasury order ; but what- ever orders the Treasury may issue, the alternate infla- tions and contractions of the paper currency incident to such a pernicious system as ours will continue to produce their inevitable consequence, unwholesome activity of business, followed by prostration, sudden and disastrous. We have exhausted our space for the present ; but shall have more to say on this subject another day. There are some prophetic passages in the speech of Mr. Cam- breleng on the distribution bill last winter, to which we shall take an early occasion to ask the attention of our readers. In the month of October or November, 1836, Mr. Leggett's connection with the Evening Post ceased, and with his usual activi. ty he immediately undertook the establishment of the Plaindealer, which appeared in "December of the same year. My remaining selections are made from the last named work, — Ed. WILLIAM LEGOETT. 107 THE POLITICAL PLAINDEALER. PREFATORY REMARKS. [From the Plaindealer, December 3, 1836.] The first number of the Plaindealer was to be is- sued so soon after the announcement of an intention to pubUsh such a journal, that it was not thought necessary to precede it with a very elaborate prospectus ; the more particularly as tbe editor's connexion with the Evening Post f^)r eight years previous, during a considerable por- tion of which time that paper was under his sole direc- tion, had made the public very generally acquainted with his views on all the leading questions of politics and po- litical economy, and with his mode of treating those sub- jects. Instead of the swelling promises which usually herald a publication of this kind, it was therefore deemed better to let the work speak for itself, and to depend for its success, from the first, as we eventually must, on the intrinsic qualities by which it should be distinguished. The same reasons which obviated the necessity of a par- ticular prospectus, suggest the propriety of indulging in but a brief preliminary address. The Plaindealer is now before the reader, and must speak for itself. There are always circumstances to be encountered at the outset of an undertaking hke this which diminish the merits of a first number, and which therefore authorize us to express, with some confidence, a hope that future numbers may be better. We think we can at least safely promise that equal claims shall be maintained. 108 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP The title chosen for this publication expresses the cha- racter which it is intended it shall maintain. In poli- tics, in literature, and in relation to all subjects which may come under its notice, it is meant that it shall be a Plaindealer. But plainness, as it is hoped this journal will illustrate, is not incompatible with strict decorum, and a nice regard for the inviolability of private charac- ter. It is not possible, in all cases, to treat questions of public interest in so abstract a manner as to avoid giving offence to individuals ; since few men possess the happy art which Sheridan ascribes to his Governor in the Critic, and are able entirely to separate their personal feelings from what relates to their public or official conduct and characters. It is doubtful, too, if it were even practica- ble so to conduct the investigations, and so to temper the animadversions of the press, as, in every instance, " to find the fault and let the actor go," whether the interests of truth would, by such a course, be best promoted. The journalist who should so manage his disquisitions, would indeed exercise but the " cypher of a function." His censures would be likely to awaken but little attention in the reader, and effect but little reformation in their object. People do not peruse the columns of a newspa- per for theoretic essays, and elaborate examinations of abstract questions; but for strictures and discussions, occasional in their nature, and applicable to existing persons and events. There is no reason, however, why the vulgar appetite for abuse and scandal should be grati- fied, or why, in maintaining the cause of truth, the rules of good breeding should be violated. Plaindealing re- quires no such sacrifice. Truth, though it is usual to t array it in a garb of repulsive bluntness, has no natural aversion to amenity ; and the mind distinguished for openness and sincerity may at the same time be charac- terized by a high degree of urbanity and gentleness. It WILLIAM LEGGETT. 109 will be one of the aims of the Plaindealer to prove, by its example, that there is at least nothing utterly contra- riousand irreconcilable in these traits. In politics, the Plaindealer will be thoroughly demo- cratic. It will be democratic not merely to the extent of the political maxim, that the majority have the right to govern ; but to the extent of the moral maxim, that it is the duty of the majority so to govern as to preserve invi- olate the equal rights of all. In this large sense, demo- cracy includes all the main principles of political econo- my : that noble science which is silently and surely revolutionizing the world ; which is changing the policy of nations from one of strife to one of friendly emula- tion ; and cultivating the arts of peace on the soil hith- erto desolated by the ravages of war. Democracy and political economy both assert the true dignity of man. They are both the natural champions of freedom, and the enemies of all restraints on the many for the benefit of the few. They both consider the people the only proper source of government, and their equal protection its only proper end ; and both would confine the interference of legislation to the fewest possible objects, compatible with the preservation of social order. They are twin-sisters, pursuing parallel paths, for the accomplishment of cog- nate objects. They are sometimes found divided, but always in a languishing condition ; and they can only truly flourish where they exist in companionship, and, hand in hand, achieve their kindred purposes. The Plaindealer claims to belong to the great demo- cratic party of this country; but it will never deserv^e to be considered a party paper in the degrading sense in which that phrase is commonly understood. The pre- vailing error of political journals is to act as if they deemed it more important to preserve the organization of party, than to promote the principles on which it ia Vol. II.— 10 110 POLITICAL WEITINGS OF founded. They substitute the means for the end, and pay that fealty to men which is due only to truth. This fa- tal error it will be a constant aim of the Plaindealer to avoid. It will espouse the cause of the democratic party only to the extent that the democratic party merits its appellation and is faithful to the tenets of its political creed. It will contend on its side while it acts in con- formity with its fundamental doctrines, and will be found warring against it whenever it violates those doctrines in any essential respect. Of the importance and even dignity of party combination, no journal can entertain a higher and more respectful sense. They furnish the only certain means of carrying political principles into effect. When men agree in their theory of Govern- ment, they must also agree to act in concert, or no prac- tical advantage can result from their accordance. " For my part," says Burke, " I find it impossible to conceive that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of an)) weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced to practice." From what has been already remarked, it is matter of obvious inference that the Plaindealer will steadily and earnestly oppose all partial and special legislation, and all grants of exclusive or peculiar privileges. It will, in a particular manner, oppose, with its utmost energy, the extension of the pernicious bank system with which this country is cursed ; and will zealously contend, in season and out of season, for the repeal of those tyrannous prohibitory laws, which give to the chartered money- changers their chief power of evil. To the very princi- ple of special incorporation we here, on the threshold of our undertaking, declare interminable hostility. It is a principle utterly at war with the principles of democracy. It is the opposite of that which asserts the equal rights of man, and limits the offices of government to his equal / WILLIAM LEGGETT. Ill protection. It is, in its nature, an aristocratic principle ; and if permitted to exist among us much longer, and to to be acted upon by our legislators, will leave us nothing of equal liberty but the name. Thanks to the illustrious man who was called in a happy hour to preside over our country ! the attention of the people has been thoroughly awakened to the insidious nature and fatal influences of chartered privileges. The popular voice, already, in va- rious quarters, denounces them. In vain do those who possess, and those who seek to obtain grants of monopo- lies, endeavour to stifle the rising murmur. It swells louder and louder ; it grows more and more distinct ; and is spreading far and wide. The days of the charter- mongers are numbered. The era of equal privileges is at hand. There is one other subject on which it is proper to touch in these opening remarks, and on which we desire that there should exist the most perfect understanding with our readers. We claim the right, and shall exercise it too, on all proper occasions, of absolute freedom of dis- cussion. We hold that there is no subject whatever in- terdicted from investigation and comment ; and that we are under no obligation, political or otherwise, to refrain from a full and candid expression of opinion as to the manifold evils, and deep disgrace, inflicted on our coun- try by the institution of slavery. Nay more, it will be one of the occasional but earnest objects of this paper to show by statistical calculations and temperate arguments, enforced by every variety of illustration that can pro- perly be employed, the impolicy of slavery, as well as its enormous wickedness : to show its pernicious influence on all the dearest interests of the south ; on its moral character, its social relations, and its agricultural, com- mercial and political prosperity. No man can deny the momentous importance of this subject, nor that it is one 112 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF of deep interest to every American citizen. It is the duty, then, of a pubhc journahst to discuss it ; and from the obligations of duty we trust the Plaindealer will never shrink. We establish this paper, expecting to de- rive from it a livelihood ; and if an honest and industri- ous exercise of such talents as we have can achieve that object, we shall not fail. But we cannot, for the sake of a livelihood, trim our sails to suit the varying breeze of popular prejudice. We should prefer, with old Andrew Marvell, to scrape a blade bone of cold mutton, to faring more sumptuously on viands obtained by a sur- render of principle.* If a paper, which makes the right, not the expedient, its cardinal object, will not yield its * The story to which allusion is here made cannot too often be repeated. We copy it from a life of Marvell, by John Dove. It is as follows : The borough of Hull, in the reign of Charles II. chose Andrew Marvell, a young gentleman of little or no for- tune, and maintained him in London for the service of the pubhc. His understanding, integrity, and spirit, were dreadful to the then infamous administration. Persuaded that he would be theirs for properly asking, they sent his old school-fellow, the Lord Trea- SURER Danby, to renew acquaintance with him in his garret. At parting, the Lord Treasurer, out of pure affection, slipped into his hand an order upon the Treasury for 1,000/., and then went to his chariot. Marvell looking at the paper, calls after the Treasurer " My Lord, I request another moment." They went up again to the garret, and JacJ^, the servant boy, was called. " Jack, child, what had I for dinner yesterday ?" " Don't you remember, sir ? you had the little shoulder of mutton that you ordered me to bring from a woman in the market." " Very right, child. What have I for dinner to day ?" " Don't you know, sir, that you bid me lay by the hlade-bone to broil ?" " 'Tis so, very right, child, go away. My Lord, do you hear that ? Andrew Marvell's dinner is provided ; there's your piece of paper. I want it not. I knew the sort of kindness you intended. I live here to serve my con- stituents; the Ministry may seek men for their purpose; / am not one." WILLIAM LEGGETT. 113 conductor a support, there are honest vocations that will ; and better the humblest of them, than to be seated at the head of an influential press, if its influence is not exerted to promote the cause of truth. THANKSGIVING DAY. [Fro7n the Plaindealer, December 3, 1836.] Thursday, the fifteenth of the present month, has been designated by Governor Marcy, in his annual pro- clamation, as a day of general thanksgiving throughout this state. This is done in conformity with a long esta- blished usage, which has been so generally and so scru- pulouslv observed, that we doubt whether it has ever been pretermitted, for a single year, by the Chief Magistrate of any state in the Confederacy. The people, too, on these occasions, have always responded with such cordi- ality and unanimity to the recommendation of the Go- vernors, that not even the Sabbath, a day which the scriptures command to be kept holy, is more religiously observed, in most places, than the day set apart as one of thanksgiving and prayer by gubernatorial appointment. There is something exceedingly impressive in the specta- cle which a whole people presents, in thus voluntarily withdrawing themselves on some particular day, from all secular employment, and uniting in a tribute of praise for the blessings they enjoy. Against a custom so vene- rable for its age, and so reverently observed, it may seem presumptuous to suggest an objection ; yet there is one which we confess seems to us of weight, and we trust we shall not be thought governed by an irreligious spirit, if we take the liberty to urge it. In framing our political institutions, the great men to whom that important trust was confided, taught, by the 10* 114 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF example of other countries, the evils which result from mingling civil and ecclesiastical affairs, were particularly careful to keep them entirely distinct. Thus the Con- stitution of the United States mentions the subject of religion at all, only to declare that " no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in the United States." The Constitution of our own state specifies that " the free exercise and en- joyment of religious professions and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed in this state to all mankind ;" and so fearful were the framers of that instrument of the dangers to be appre- hended from a union of political and religious con- cerns, that they inserted a clause of positive interdiction against ministers of the gospel, declaring them forever ineligible to any civil or military office or place within the state. In this last step we think the jealousy of re- ligious interference proceeded too far. We see no good reason why preachers of the gospel should be partially disfranchised, any more than preachers against it, or any more than men devoted to any other profession or pur- suit. This curious prescriptive article of our Constitu- tion presents the startling anomaly, that while an infidel, who delivers stated Sunday lectures in a tavern, against all religion, may be elected to the highest executive or legislative trust, the most liberal and enlightened divine is excluded. In our view of the subject neither of them should be proscribed. They should both be left to stand on the broad basis of equal political rights, and the in- telligence and virtue of the people should be trusted to make a selection from an unbounded field. This is the true democratic theory ; but this is a subject apart from that which it is our present purpose to consider. No one can pay the most cursory attention to the state of religion in the United States, without being satisfied WILLIAM LEGGETT. 115 that its true interests have been greatly promoted by di- vorcing it from all connexion with political afTairs. In no other country of the world are the institutions of reli- gion so general!}^ respected, and in no other is so large a proportion of the population included among the comma- nicants of the different christian churches. The number of christian churches or congregations in the United States is estimated, in a carefully prepared article of re- ligious statistics in the American Almanac of the present year, at upwards of sixteen thousand, and the number of communicants at nearly two millions, or one-tenth of the entire population. In this city alone the number of churches is one hundred and fifty, and their aggregate capacity is nearly equal to the accommodation of the whole number of inhabitants. It is impossible to conjec- ture, from any data within our reach, the amount of the sum annually paid by the American people, of their own free will, for the support of the ministry, and the vari- ous expenses of their religious institutions : but it will readily be admitted that it must be enormous. These, then, are the auspicious results of perfect free trade in re- ligion — of leaving it to manage its own concerns, in its own way, without government protection, regulation, or interference, of any kind or degree whatever. The only instance of intermeddling, on the part of the civil authorities, with matters which, being of a religious character, properly belong to the religious guides of the people, is the proclamation which it is the custom for the Governor of each state annually to issue, appointing a day of general thanksgiving, or a day of general fasting and prayer. We regret that even this single exception should exist to that rule of entire separation of the affairs of state from those of the church, the observance of which in all other respects has been followed by the happiest results. It is to the source of the proclamation. 116 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF not to its purpose, that we chiefly object. The recom- mending a day of thanksgiving is not properly any part of the duty of a political Chief Magistrate : it belongs, in its nature, to the heads of the church, not to the head of the state. It may very well happen, and, indeed, it has happened, in more instances than one, that the chief executive offi- cer of a state has been a person, who, if not absolutely an infidel or sceptic in religious matters, has at least, in his private sentiments and conduct, been notoriously dis- regardful of religion. What mockery for such a person to call upon the people to set apart a day for returning acknowledgments to Almighty God for the bounties and blessings bestowed upon them ! But even when the con- trary is the case, and it is well known that the Governor is a strictly religious man, he departs very widely from the duties of his office, in proclaiming, in his gubernatorial capacity, and under the seal of the state, that he has appointed a particular day as a day of general thanks- giving. This is no part of his official business, as pre- scribed in the Constitution. It is not one of the purpo. ses for which he was elected. If it were a new question, and a Governor should take upon himself to issue such a proclamation for the first time, the proceeding could scarcely fail to arouse the most sturdy opposition from the people. Religious and irreligious would unite in condemning it : the latter as a gross departure from the specified duties for the discharge of which alone the Go- vernor was chosen ; and the former as an unwarranta- ble interference of the civil authority with ecclesiastical affairs, and a usurpation of the functions of their own duly appointed ministers and church officers. We recollect very distinctly what an excitement arose in this commu- nity a few years ago, when our Common Council, follow, ing the example of the Governor, undertook to interfere WILLIAM LBGGETT. HT ia a matter winch belonged wholly to the clerical func- tionaries, and passed a resolution recommending to the various ministers of the gospel the subject of their next Sunday discourse. The Governor's proclamation would itself provoke equal opposition, if men's eyes had not been sealed by custom to its inherent impropriety. If such a proceeding would be wrong, instituted now for the first time, can it be right, because it has existed for a long period 1 Does age change the nature of prin- ciples, and give sanctity to error ? Are truth and false- hood of such mutable and shifting qualities, that though, in their originial characters, as opposite as the poles, the lapse of a little time may reduce them to a perfect simili- tude, and render them entirely convertible ? If age has in it such power as to render venerable what is not so in its intrinsic nature, then is paganism more venerable than Christianity, since it has existed from a much more remote antiquity. But what is wrong in principle must continue to be wrong to the end of time, however sanctioned by custom. It is in this light we consider the gubernatorial recommendation of a day of thanksgiving ; and because it is wrong in principle, and not because of any particu- lar harm which the custom has yet been the means of introducing, we should be pleased to see it abrogated. We think it can hardly be doubted that, if the duty of settino- apart a day for a general expression of thankfulness for the blessings enjoyed by the community were submit- ted wholly to the proper representatives of the different religious sects they would find no difficulty in uniting on the subject, and acting in concert in such a manner as should give greater solemnity and weight to their pro- ceeding, than can ever attach to the proclamation of a political governor, stepping out of the sphere of his con- stitutional duties, and taking upon himself to direct tiie religious exercises of the people. We cannot too jealously 118 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP confine our political fiinctionaries within the limits of their prescribed duties. We cannot be too careful to keep entirely separate the things which belong to govern- ment from those which belong to religion. The pohtical and the religious interests of the people will both flourish the more prosperously for being wholly distinct. The condition of religious affairs in this country fully proves the truth of the position ; and we are satisfied it would receive still further corroboration, if the practice to which we object were reformed. I PILOTS. [From the Plaindealer, December 3, 1836.] The loss of the Bristol, some account of which melan- choly and fatal shipwreck will be found under the appro- priate head, has had the good effect of drawing public attention very strongly to the defects of that bad system of laws in regard to piloting, to which the dreadful casu- alty is, beyond all question, attributable, and to create a very general and deep conviction of the necessity of im- mediate reform. The defects of the pilot laws have often before been adverted to in several of the leading public journals, and they have been the theme also, of particu- lar animadversion in the legislature ; but all attempts to improve them have hitherto failed. Their evil tendency has now received an illustration, however, which forces the subject on public attention, and occasions so general and earnest a demand for a thorough revision and remo. dification of the system, that those interested in preserv- ing the present abuses will hardly have influence enough effectually to resist the desired reform. The fondness for monopoly which, in regard to so many matters, has distinguished the legislation of this state, is shown in no WILLIAM LEGGETT. 119 instance more signally than in the laws relating to pilots. If the legislators had been all ingenious men, (which we believe has seldom happened to be the case,) and if it had been their express object to frame a set of laws on that subject which should most completely defeat their ostensible object, they could hardly have devised a system more suited to such a purpose than that which they have instituted nominally for the protection of the vast and valuable commerce of this port. The remedy for a sys- tem, the natural fruit of which is seen in the dreadful shipwreck which has recently occurred at the very en- trance of our harbour, is perfectly simple. The evil re- sults from monopoly, and free-trade supplies the obvious and infallible remedy. A system of unbounded competi- tion ; a system which should allow any person to be pilot, who submitted to a competent tribunal, the proper evi- dences of skill, and gave proper security for a faithful exercise of his functions, would be certain to supply the harbour of New-York with a numerous class of as hardy, intelligent, and enterprising pilots, as are to be met with in any port in the world. Instead of the sleepy and in- temperate leeches, who now fatten on our commerce, without rendering it any real assistance, and who vigi- lantly discharge no part of their calling but that of col- lecting their unearned fees, we should have a set of men who, in storm and sunshine, would be constantly upon the ocean, venturing far out, and furthest under the most threatening sky. We should have men who would not suffer a noble ship, after having triumphantly encounter- ed the storms of the Atlantic, to be wrecked, and scores of human beings to perish with her, for want of a pilot, in the very mouth of our harbour. We should have men, as the Evening Post forcibly expresses it, " almost am- phibious, and caring as little for the storm as the sea- gull." 120 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP BREAD LAW. [From the Plaindealer, December 3, 1836.] We were hugely disappointed last Monday evening, that the Common Council did not complete their action on the subject of bread. Some weeks ago, Alderman Holly introduced a resolution, which was adopted, in fa- vour of appointing a committee to consider the propriety of re-establishing the old law relative to an assize of bread. If the committee which was appointed under this resolution had acted with half as much celerity as they usually do when eatables or drinkables are the sub- ject of their deliberations, we should probably by this time have had bread of respectable size, instead of the diminutive things — scarcely a mouthful for a hungry Alderman — which the bakers have now the audacity to serve to their customers as shilling and sixpenny loaves. There are some people so ignorant of the laws of poli- tical economy as to pretend that the size of bread ought to be governed by the fluctuations in the price of flour, and to be large when flour is cheap, and small when it is dear. It is strange how such an absurd notion, so utter- ly opposed to the principles of our entire system of legis- lation, could ever get into the heads of sensible men. What can the poor man, who buys his shilling loaf of bread of the grocer, be supposed to know concerning the price of flour 1 He cannot be running about the town to ascertain the variations of the flour market. His time is money, and he cannot aflx>rd to spend it in so prodigal a manner. No : it is necessary to protect him from the frauds of dishonest bakers : it is necessary to establish a uniform weight, and to ensure compliance with it by appointing a Bread Weighmaster General, with an ample retinue of Deputies. Is not this the prin- WILLIAM LEGGETT. 121 ciple which pervades our legislation ? Have we not a Weighniaster General of merchandise ? Have we not an Inspector of Tobacco ? and of Flour ? and of Beef? and of Pork ? And shall bread, the staff of life, be neg- lected ? "Tell it not in Gath !/' We trust Alderman Holly will take an early opportu- nity to make his report, and we hope he will recommend a good stout loaf at once, and urge its adoption with all that eloquence and learning for which we understand he is distinguished. The measure may operate rather hard upon the bakers, but will it not be a benefit to the com- munity at large ? And why should the profits of a few extortionate bakers stand in the way of a great good to thousands and tens of thousands of people ? If the bakers have any patriotism they will themselves not object. But the hardship will be one of only temporary duration. Flour cannot always remain at fourteen dollars a barrel, and wood at three dollars a load. A reaction, by andby, will reduce prices as much below a medium point as they now are above it ; and then will come the harvest of the bakers. They will then find the truth of Lord Byron's line, (if they ever read Lord Byron,) that Time at last makes all things even. The wise men who frame our laws have been fully aware of this truth. Hence the usance of money is fixed at seven per cent., not that it is always worth seven per cent, and no more, as there were some long-faced gentry in Wall-street, this very day, who could have testified ; but because it is sometimes as much above that rate, as at other times below it, and so the legislature strike an average, for the sake of uniformity, and to protect the community. In the same way they limit the number of pilots to sixty, though there are times when more might Vol. II.— 11 122 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP find employment. But take one time with another, that number is sufficient, and it is therefore fixed at that, for the sake of uniformity, and to protect the community — an end well accomplished, as a certain recent event has fully proved ! In the same wise spirit which devised the usury law, Alderman Holly now proposes to pass a law, fixing a uni- form standard of bread ; and we hear it whispered that he next intends to establish a uniform standard for coats and pantaloons, and to impose a heavy fine on every tailor who shall dare to make them larger or smaller than the prescribed dimensions. Very large people and very small people may, it is true, experience some incon- venience from being obliged to wear garments of the medium standard ; but there is a great benefit in unifor- mity, and the community ought to be protected by law against the frauds of tailors, who are somewhat noted for cabbaging. We advise Alderman Holly to persevere, nor pause in his wise undertaking, till he has fixed a standard for every thing by law. Do we not boast of being a people of laws ? If it is a thing to boast of, let us then have law enough. THE STREET OF THE PALACES. [From the Plaindealer, Deceviher 10, 1836.] There is, in the city of Genoa, a very elegant street, commonly called, The Street of the Palaces. It is broad and regular, and is flanked, on each side, with rows ot spacious and superb palaces, whose marble fronts, of tha most costly and imposing architecture, give an air of ex- ceeding grandeur to the place. Here reside the princi- pal aristocracy of Genoa ; the families of Balbi, Doria, and many others of those who possess patents of nobility WILLIAM LEGGETT. 123 and exclusive privileges. The lower orders of the peo- ple, when they pass before these proud edifices, and cast their eyes over the striking evidences which the lordly exteriors exhibit of the vast wealth and power of the titled possessors, may naturally be supposed to think of their own humble dwelUngs and slender possessions, and to curse in their hearts those institutions of their coun- try which divide society into such extremes of condition, forcing the many to toil and sweat for the pampered and privileged few. Wretched indeed are the serfs and vas- sals of those misgoverned lands, where a handful of men compose the privileged orders, monopolising political power, diverting to their peculiar advantage the sources of pecuniary emolument, and feasting, in luxurious idle- ness, on the fruits of the hard earnings of the poor. But is this condition of things confined to Genoa, or to European countries ? Is there no parallel for it in our own ? Have we not, in this very city, our " Street of the Palaces,'^ adorned with structures as superb as those of Genoa in exterior magnificence, and containing within them vaster treasures of wealth ? Have we not, too, our 'privileged orders 1 our scrip nobility ? aristocrats, clothed with special immunities, who control, indirectly, but certainly, the political power of the state, monopolise the most copious sources of pecuniary profit, and wring the very crust from the hard hand of toil ? Have we not, in short, like the wretched serfs of Europe, our lordly masters, " Who make us slaves, and tell us 'tis their charter 7 " If any man doubts how these questions should be an- swered, let him walk through Wall-street. He will there see a street of palaces, whose stately marble walls rival those of Balbi and Doria. If he inquires to whom those costly fabrics belong, he will be told to the exclusively 124 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP privileged of this land of equal laws ! If he asks con- cerning the political power of the owners, he will ascer- tain that three-fourths of the legislators of the state are of their own order, and deeply interested in preserving and extending the privileges they enjoy. If he investi- gates the sources of their prodigious wealth, he will dis- cover that it is extorted, under various delusive names, and by a deceptive process, from the pockets of the un- privileged and unprotected poor. These are the masters in this land of freedom. These are our aristocracy, our scrip nobility, our privileged order of charter-mongers and money-changers ! Serfs of free America ! bow your necks submissively to the yoke, for these exchequer barons have you fully in their power, and resistance now would but make the burden more galling. Do they not boast that they will be represented in the halls of legisla- tion, and that the people cannot help themselves ? Do not their servile newspaper mouth-pieces prate of the im- policy of giving an inch to the people, lest they should demand an ell ] Do they not threaten, that unless the people restrict their requests within the narrowest com- pass, they will absolutely grant them nothing ? — that they will not relax their fetters at all, lest they should next strive to snap them entirely asunder? These are not figures of speech. Alas ! we feel in no mood to be rhetorical. Tropes and figures are the lan- guage of the free, and we are slaves ! — slaves to most ig- noble masters, to a low-minded, ignorant, and rapacious order of money-changers. We speak, therefore, not in figures, but in the simplest and soberest phrase. We speak plain truths in plain words, and only give utter- ance to sentiments that involuntarily rose in our mind, as we glided this morning through the Street of the Pa. laces, beneath the frowning walls of its marble structures, fearing that our very thoughts might be construed into o, WILLIAM LECGETT. 125 breach of privilege. But thank heaven ! the day has not yet come — though perhaps it is at hand — when our pa- per money patricians deny their serfs and vassals the right to think and speak. We may still give utterance to our opinions, and still walk with a confident step through the Street of the Palaces of the Charter -mongers. ASSOCIATED EFFORT. [From the Plaindealer, December 10, 1836,] Some days ago, we observed in one of the newspapers, a paragraph stating that a meeting of mechanics and la- bourers was about to be held in this city for the purpose of adopting measures of concerted or combined action against the practice, which we have reason to believe exists to a very great extent, of paying them in the un- current notes of distant or suspected banks. No such meeting, however, as far as we can learn, has yet been held. We hope it soon will be ; for the object is a good one, and there is no other way of resisting the rapacious and extortionate custom of employers paying their jour- neymen and laborers in depreciated paper, half so effectual as combination. There are some journalists who affect to entertain great horror of combinations, considering them as utterly adverse to the principles of free trade ; and it is frequently recommended to make them penal by law. Our notions of free trade were acquired in a different school, and dis- pose us to leave men entirely at liberty to effect a proper object either by concerted or individual action. The character af combinations, in our view, depends entirely upon the intrinsic character of the end which is aimed at. In the subject under consideration, the end proposed is good beyond all possibillity of question. There is high 11* 126 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP warrant for saying that the labourer is worthy of his hire ; but the employer, who takes advantage of his necessities and defencelessness to pay him in a depreciated substi- tute for money, does not give him his hire ; he does not perform his engagement with him ; he filches from the poor man a part of his hard-earned wages, and is guilty of a miserable fraud. Who shall say that this sneaking species of extortion ought not to be prevented 1 Who will say that separate individual action is adequate to that end ? There is no one who will make so rash an assertion. The only effectual mode of doing away the evil is by attacking it with the great instrument of the rights of the poor — associated effort. There is but one bulwark behind which mechanics and labourers may safely rally to op- pose a common enemy, who, if they ventured singly in- to the field against him, would cut them to pieces : that bulwark is the Principle of Combination, We would advise them to take refuge behind it only in extreme cases, because in their collisions with their employers, as in those between nations, the manifold evils of a siege are experienced, more or less, by both parties, and are therefore to be incurred only in extreme emergencies. But the evil of being habitually paid in a depreciated sub- stitute for money ; of being daily cheated out of a por- tion of the just fruits of honest toil ; of having a slice continually clipped from the hard-earned crust ; is one of great moment, and is worthy of such an effort as we propose. WILLIAM LEGGETT. 127 PRIVILEGED ORDERS IN DANGER. [From the Plaindealer^ December 10, 1836.] A DOCUMENT is published in the Washington Globe of last Monday, which we liave read with the profoundest attention and the HveHest pleasure, and which we regret that the occupied state of our columns'^prevents us tVom faking as full a notice of as the importance of the subject and the ability with which it is treated deserve. This document is a letter from Charles J. Ingersoll, of Phila- delphia, in answer to one addressed to him by a number of the members elect of the Pennsylvania legislature, ask- ing him, as he had been chosen a member of the Conven- tion to propose amendments to the Constitution of that state, to express, for publication, the views he entertains in regard to the general powers of the Convention, parti- cularly with reference to the United States Bank, and the question of vested rights. Mr. Ingersoll goes very fully into an exposition of the subjects indicated by these inquiries. At the very outset of his reply, he explicitly declares, as his own deliberate and mature conviction, that hank-charters may he repealed hy act of Assemhly^ wilhout a Convention^, and that such act will not he contra- ry to the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Inger- soll shows that such also was the opinion, fifty years ago, of the early democrats of Pennsylvania, noc declared merely, but practised, in the repeal of the charter of the Bank of North America, in 1785. This repeal was ef- fected on the broad democratic ground, not that it had violated the conditions of its exclusive privileges, but that such an institution was aristocratic in its nature, danger- ous to liberty both in its intrinsic character and as a pre- cedent of evil, and utterly inconsistent with the funda. mental principle avowed in the Pennsylvania Bill of 128 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP Rights, that government was to be administered for the equal advantage of men, and not for the peculiar emolu- ment of any man, family, or set of men. Mr. Ingersoll also shows that the doctrine of the revocability of charters has been strenuously maintained by some of the greatest British statesmen ; among them by Fox and Burke, on the bill for revoking the charter of the East India Com- pany ; and he gives a long and pertinent extract from the memorable speech of the latter on that subject. Mr. Ingersoll contends that a bank charter is not a contract within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting any state from passing a law impairing the obligation of contracts, and he shows that the authorised exponents of the other side of the question, so far as the repeal of the charter of the Penn- sylvania United States Bank is in debate, have them- selves expressly admitted that their engagement with the state lacks an essential principle to constitute it a con- tract. The letter of Mr. Ingersoll closes with an admir- able passage, descriptive of the present condition of affairs in this country, brought about by exclusively pri- vileged stock-jobbers and money-changers ; and contrasts it with the condition in which they would soon be placed, on the accomplishing of that great reformation which shall " restore to the people their equality, to the states their sovereignty, and to the Union its supremacy over coin and currency." THE COAL QUESTION. [Fro7n the Plaindealer, December 10, 1836.] There seems to be no doubt entertained, among those who have investigated the subject, that there is a combi- nation among the dealers in coal, in this city, not to sell WILLIAM LEGGBTT, 129 under certain stipulated prices. We do not know whe- ther this is so or not ; but let us take it for granted that it is, and the question then arises, What are we to do to remedy the evil ? The Albany Argus would suggest that "it might be well to inquire whether combinations to raise the price of coal, pork, flour, and other necessaries of life, are not offences against society," which require to be made punishable by law. The Journal of Com- merce (a free-trade paper !) would respond affirmatively to the question, and say, " if dealers in the above articles have combined to raise prices, let the law walk into them ! " For our own part, we would neither make a new law to punish the combiners, nor take advantage of Chief Justice Savage's and Judge Edwards's decisions, to inflict upon them the penalty of any existing statute, or of any breach of the common law of England. With all defer- ence to the Journal of Commerce, we must take the liberty to say, that we consider its example better than its pre- cept ; and that is by no means a usual occurrence in these days of much profession and little practice. That print informs us that its conductors, "not being disposed to submit to the extortion of the coal combination, took the liberty to order a small cargo from Philadelphia, which cost there, at this late season of the year, 88 50 the long ton of 2240 lbs. broken and screened. The freight will increase the price to about 811 25 the long ton, which is equal to $10 for such tons as are sold by the combina-' tionists. Dumped at the door, the cost will not exceed $11." This, the Journal of Commerce adds, is better than paying thirteen or fourteen dollars, the price charged here, and shows what kind of profits the coal dealers make. Let us add that it is better, also, than making a law, or raking up an old one from the undis- turbed dust of antiquity, to punish a combination, (if per- 130 POLITICAL WRITIJfGS OF adventure any combination exists) which is so very easily circumvented and set at nought. The Journal of Commerce and the Albany Argus may both rest assured that the laws of trade are a much bet- ter defence against improper combinations, than any laws which the legislature at Albany can make, judging by the specimens to be found in the statute books. When a set of dealers combine to raise the price of a commodity above its natural value, they will be sure to provoke com- petition that will very soon let them down from their fan- cied elevation. It seems, according to the Journal of Commerce's own statement, that the coal dealers are sell- ing coal by retail in this city at an advance of from eighteen to twenty-seven per cent, upon the net cost of the article delivered here. This is making no allow- ances for the diminution of weight the coal may undergo during transportation ; nor for the fees of the inspectors of coal, which are to be charged upon it as an item of the cost ; nor for the rent of the coal-yard ; nor for wages of labour in shovelling it to and fro. When all these parti- culars are added together, and deducted from the price asked, it will be found, we think, to leave but a moderate profit for the coal dealers, notwithstanding the many and loud complaints of their extortion. Truth is truth, and though the price of fuel is enormously high, we ought not to impute all the blame to those of our citizens who deal in the commodity, when our own figures prove that they do not make very extravagant profits after all. But if the blame does not lie with the coal dealers, where does it lie ? We think there is no great difficulty in correctly answering this question. According to our view it lies, then, in the first place, with the legislatures of two or three states, which have given the privileges of a monopoly to certain coal companies, enabling them to fix prices by combination at the fountain head. It lies, WILLIAM LEGGETT. 131 in the second place, with those same legislatures, in giv- ing the privileges of a monopoly to certain railroad and canal companies, enabling them to fix the rates of toll and freightage. It lies, in the third place, with Congress, which has placed so heavy a duty on foreign coal as al- most to shut it out from competition with the domestic. And it lies, in the fourth place, with our municipal antho- rities, who increase the burden by appointing measurers of foreign coal, weighers of domestic coal, and inspectors of wood, all of whom are allowed, by law, enormous fees for a duty which they do not half perform, and which, if they performed it ever so thoroughly, would be altogether superfluous. There is still one other cause which ought not to be omitted from the calculation ; and that is, the diminished quantity of coal mined, in consequence of speculation having withdrawn labour from that employment, during the past summer, to work on railroads, to dig canals, to level hills, and fill up valleys, and, perform the various other services which were necessary to carry out the schemes projected by the gambling spirit of the times. Hence the supply is not more than adequate, at the most, to the demand ; and hence those who have a monopoly of the article at fountain head ask the present enormous prices, secure that the citizens must either give them or freeze. There is one branch of this subject in which we most cordially concur with the Journal of Commerce. That paper suggests the propriety of the institution of benevo- lent associations, for the purpose of procuring a large supply of coal when it is cheapest, and disposing of it, by retail, at the prime cost and charges, to the poorer classes of citizens, whose means do not enable them to buy much in advance. Such an association might do a vast amount of good, without ever expending a single dollar. Sup- 132 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF pose, for example, a hundred citizens, of well known respectability, and sufficient pecuniary responsibility, should enter into an association for the purpose named, and should purchase a given amount of coal at six months credit, each member of the association being jointly and severally responsible for the indebtedness of the whole. The coal might then be put at such a price as, when all was sold, would yield the net cost and charges ; and be- fore the obligations of the company should fall due, the money would be in hand to discharge them. This would be a cheap charity on the part of those who engaged in it, and a most valuable one to those classes of citizens for whose benefit it would be intended. A FINE VOLLEY OF WORDS. From the Plaindealer of December 17, 1836. It is related, in one of those instructive fables which we have all read in our school-boy days, that the shep- herd, who indulged himself in the innocent pastime of crying wolf, when no wolf was near, for the mere purpose of seeing what effect the startling exclamation would have on the neighbouring herdsmen, found, unfortunately, when the beasts of prey actually descended upon his flock, and were committing unresisted havoc, that the alarm-word, which had been wont to bring instant suc- cour, had wholly lost its salutary efficacy. The moral of this story is susceptible of extensive application. They who invoke aid when none is required, will be doomed at last to have their prayers unheeded, however urgent may be the occasion which then prompts the appeal ; and they, too, whose objurgatory temper leads them to in- dulcre in habitual threats, when no cause of offence is in- tended, will find, in the end, their fiercest denunciations /' WILLIAM LEGGETT. 133 disregarded, without reference to the circumstances by which they may be elicited. Persons who reside near the Falls of Niagara grow familiar with the din, and be- come, in time, wholly unconscious of the perpetual thun- der of the cataract ; and it is said that the keepers and medical attendants in a mad-house get so accustomed to the shrieks and yells of the frantic inmates, as to be able to pursue their avocations with as much tranquillity as if the silence was not broken by such horrid sounds. These truths do not seem to have been present in the mind of Mr. McDuffie, when he prepared his recent mes- sage to the legislature of South Carolina. He has shot off, in that document, " a fine volley of words," to use a phrase from Shakspeare ; but he seems to have forgotten that the northern people have become so accustomed to such volleys, that they have lost the terror which origi- nally belonged to them. There was a time when a threat of disunion, from a much more insignificant source than the chief magistrate of a great state, in his official com- munication with the legislature, would have excited a thrill of alarm in the bosom of every true lover of his country, throughout the whole extent of this vast confe- deracy. There was a time, when every heart sincerely responded to the farewell admonition of Washington, that as union is the main pillar in the edifice of our real independence, we should " cherish a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it ; watching for its pre- servation with jealous anxiety ; discountenancing what- ever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning on the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest." There was a lime, when the sacrilegious thief, who steals the consecrated chalice from the altar, would not be looked upon, by religious men, with half the horror that a whole people would Vol. II.— 12 134 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP have regarded the daring wretch who should lisp a re- commendation to dissolve the federal compact. But that time is long since past. The bound which restrained, as within a magic circle, the controversies of political disputants, has been overleaped. Southern statesmen (what an abuse of the word !) long ago employed their arithmetic to calculate the value of the Union ; and now nothing is more common than the threat of its dissolution. Is it proposed to admit a territory into the Confederacy under such qualifications as shall promote the cause of freedom, and extend and strengthen the basis of human rights'? Dissolve the Union ! is the cry which at once assails our ears from the south. Is it recommended, by those whose interests are involved in manufactures, to continue, for a while longer, the restrictions on com- merce, under which domestic manufactures were first fos- tered into existence 1 Dissolve the Union ! exclaim the patriots of the south. Is it suggested that it is the duty of Congress to abolish slavery in a district over which the Constitution gives it exclusive jurisdiction ? Dis- solve the Union ! is the frantic shout which is again pealed forth from the south. To dissolve the Union seems to be the ready remedy for every grievance, real or supposed. It is the nostrum which, in the true spirit of reckless and desperate quackery, the politicians of the southern states, and particularly of South Carolina, would administer for every ill. It is the panacea which they appear to consider of universal efficacy. It is the cure which will alike restore the patient to health, whe- ther he suffers from an external hurt or from internal decay ; whether his malady be serious or trivial, chronic or acute. Amputation seems to be the only remedial measure known in the political chirurgery of the south. But Governor McDuffie goes a step further than any WILLIAM LEGGETT. 135 former practitioner. He is for using the knife, not when disease attacks a limb, but the moment it is apprehend- ed. He is for dissolving the Union, not when any mea- sure, militating against "the domestic institutions of the south," is effected ; but whenever it is proposed. He would proceed to that extremity, not when the abolition of slavery, in any shape or degree, is accomplished ; but the moment the question is discussed. To say that slave- ry is an evil, is, in his view, a violation of the federal compact ; and for Congress to receive a petition on the subject, is, according to his exposition of constitutional law, equivalent to a declaration of war against the states in which slavery exists. THE CORPORATION QUESTION. [From the Plaindealer, December 24, 1836.] One of the newspapers which has done us the honour to notice this journal, animadverts, with considerable as- perity, upon our declaration of interminable hostility to the principle of special incorporation, and points our attention to certain incorporated institutions, which, according to the universal sense of mankind, are esta- blished with the purest motives, and effect the most ex- cellent objects. The ready and obvious answer to the strictures we have provoked is, that it is the means, not the end, which furnishes the subject of our condemnation. An act of special incorporation may frequently afford the persons associated under it facilities of accomplishing much public good ; but if those facilities can only be given at the expense of rights of paramount importance, they ought to be denied by all whose political morality re- jects the odious maxim that the end justifies the means. It would be a very strained and unwarrantable inference 136 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF from any remarks we have made, to say that we are an enemy to churches, public libraries, or charitable associ- ations, because we express hostility to special legislation. It would be an unwarranted infjrence to say that we are even opposed to the principle of incorporation ; since it is only to the principle of special incorporation that we have expressed hostility. We are opposed, not to the object, but to the mode by which the object is effected. We are opposed, not to corporation partnerships, but to the right of forming such partnerships being specially granted to the few, and wholly denied to the many. We are opposed, in short, to unequal legislation, whatever form it may assume, or whatever object it may ostensibly seek to accomplish. It has been beautifully and truly said, by the illustrious man who presides over the affairs of our Confederacy, that " there are no necessary evils in government. Its ' evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as heaven does its rains, shower its favours alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." But it departs from its legitimate ofiice, it widely departs from the cardinal principle of government in this country, the equal political rights of all, when it confers privileges on one set of men, no matter for what purpose, which are withheld from the rest. It is in this light we look upon all special acts of incorporation. They convey privile- ges not previously enjoyed, and limit the use of them to those on whom they are bestowed. '; That special char- ters are, in many instances, given for objects of intrinsic excellence and importance, is freely admitted ; nor do we desire to withhold our unqualified acknowledgment that they have been the means of effecting many improve- ments of great value to the community at large. Let it be clearly understood, then, that we do not war against WILLIAM LEGGSTT. . 137 the good achieved ; but seek only to illustrate the inhe- rent evil of the means. A special charter is a powerful weapon ; but it is one which should have no place in the armory of the democracy. It is an instrument which may hew down forests, and open fountains of wealth in barren places ; but these advantages are purchased at too dear a rate, if we give for them one jot or tittle of our equal freedom. As a general rule, too, corporations act for themselves, not for the community. If they cultivate the wilderness, it is to monopolize its fruits. If they delve the mine, it is to enrich themselves with its treasures. If they dig new channels for the streams of industry, it is that they may gather the golden sands for themselves, as those of Pactolus were gathered to swell the hoards of Croesus. Even if the benefits, which we are willing to admit have been effected by companies acting under special corporate privileges and immunities, could not have been achieved without the assistance of such powers, better would it have been, in our opinion, far better, that the community should have foregone the good, than purchase it by the surrender, in any instance or particular, of a principle which lies at the foundation of human liberty. No one can foretell the evil consequences which may flow from one such error of legislation. " Next day the fa- tal precedent will plead." The way once open, ambi- tion, selfishness, cupidity, rush in, each widening the breach, and rendering access easier to its successor. The monuments of enterprise erected through the aid of special privileges and immunities "are numerous and stu. pendous ; but we may yet be sadly admonished '• how wide the limits stand, Between a splendid and a happy land." But, fortunately, we are not driven to the alternative 12* 138 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF of either foregoing for the future such magnificent pro- jects as have heretofore been effected by special legisla- tion, or for the sake of accomplisliing them, continuing to grant unequal privileges. It is a propitious omen of success in the great struggle in which the real democracy of this country are engaged, that monopolies, (and we in- clude in the term all special corporate rights) are as hostile to the pririciples of sound economy, as they are to the fundamental maxims of our political creed. The good which they effect might more simply and more cer- tainly be achieved without their aid. They are fetters which restrain the action of the body politic, not motorics which increase its speed. They are jesses which hold it to earth, not wings that help it to soar. Our country has prospered, not because of them, but in spite of them. This young and vigorous republic has bounded rapidly forward, in despite of the burdens which partial legisla- tion hangs upon its neck, and the clogs it fastens to its heel. But swifter would have been its progress, sounder its health, more prosperous its general condition, had our law-makers kept constantly in view that their imperative duty requires them to exercise their functions for the good of the whole community, not for a handful of ob- trusive and grasping individuals, who, under the pretext of promoting the public welfare, are only eager to ad- vance their private interests, at the expense of the equal rights of their fellow-men. Every special act of incorporation is, in a certain sense, a grant of a monopoly. Every special act of in- corporation is a charter of privileges to a few, not en- joyed by the community at large. There is no single object can be named, for which, consistently with a sin- cere respect for the equal rights of men, a special charter of incorporation can be bestowed. It should not be given to establish a bank, nor to erect a manufactory ; WILLIAM LEGGETT, 139 to open a road, nor to build a bridge. Neither trust companies nor insurance companies should be invested with exclusive rights. Nay, acting in strict accordance with the true principles both of democracy and political economy, no legislature would, by special act, incorpo- rate even a college or a church. Let it not be supposed, however, that we would withhold from such institutions the intrinsic advantages of a charter. We would only substitute general, for partial legislation, and extend to all, the privileges proper to be bestowed upon any. The spirit of true wisdom, in human affairs, as in divine, " Acts not by partial, but by general laws." Nothing can be more utterly absurd than to suppose that the advocacy of these sentiments implies opposition to any of the great undertakings for which special legisla- tive authority and immunities are usually sought. We are opposed only to a violation of the great democratic principle of our government ; that principle which stands at the head of the Declaration of Independence ; and that which most of the states have repeated, with equal explicitness, in their separate constitutions. A general partnership law, making the peculiar advantages of a corporation available to any set of men who might choose to associate, for any lawful purpose whatever, would wholly obviate the objections which we urge. Such a law would confer no exclusive or special privileges ; such a law would be in strict accordance with the great maxim of man's political equality ; such a law would embrace the whole community in its bound, leaving capital to flow in its natural channels, and enterprise to regulate its own pursuits. Stock bubbles, as fragile as the unsubstantial globules which children amuse themselves with blowing, might not float so numerous in the air ; but all schem(^s of real utility, which presented a reasonable prospect of 140 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP profit, would be as readily undertaken as now. That active spirit of enterprise, which, in a few months, has erected a new city on the field lately desolated by the direst conflagration our history records ; that spirit of en- terprise, which every year adds whole squadrons to the in- Humerous fleet of stately vessels that transport our com- merce to the remotest harbours of the world ; that spirit of enterprise which seeks its object alike through the freezing atmosphere of the polar regions, and beneath the fervour of the torrid zone, displaying the stars and stripes of our country to every nation of the earth ; that active spirit would not flinch from undertaking whatever works of internal improvement might be needed by the community, without the aid of exclusive rights and pri- vileges. The merchant, who equips his noble vessel, freights her with the richest products of nature and art, and sends her on her distant voyage across the tempestuous sea, asks no act of incorporation. The trader, who adventures his whole resources in the commodities of his traffic, so- licits no exclusive privilege. The humble mechanic, who exhausts the fruit of many a day and night of toil in supplying his workshop with the implements of his craft, desires no charter. These are all willing to encoun- ter unlimited competition. They are content to stand on the broad basis of equal rights. They trust with honoura- ble confidence, to their own talents, exercised with in- dustry, not to special immunities, for success. Why should the speculators, who throng the lobbies of our le- gislature, be more favoured than they ? Why should the banker, the insurer, the bridge builder, the canal digger, be distinguished by peculiar privileges ? Why should they be made a chartered order, and raised above the general level of their fellow-men 1 It is curious to trace the history of corporations, and WILLIAM LEGGETT. 141 observe how, in the lapse of time, they have come to be instruments that threaten the overthrow of that liberty, which they were, at first, effectual aids in establishing. When the feudal system prevailed over Europe, and the great mass of the people were held in vilest and most ab- ject bondage by the lords, to whom they owed strict obe- dience, knowing no law but their commands, the power of the nobles, by reason of the number of their retain- ers and the extent of their possessions, was greater than that of the monarch, who frequently was a mere puppet in their hands. The barons, nominally vassals of the crown, holding their fief on condition of faithful service, were, in reality, and at all times, on any question which com- bined a few of the more powerful, absolute masters. They made kings and deposed them at pleasure. The history of all the states of Europe is full of their exploits in this wav ; but the narrative of the red and white rose of England, of the contending houses of York and Lancas- ter, is all that need be referred to for our present pur- pose. Corporations were the means at last happily hit upon of establishing a power to counterbalance that so tyrannously and rapaciously exercised by the barons. For certain services rendered, or a certain price paid, men were released from the conditions which bound them to their feudal lords, and all so enfranchised were com- bined in a corporate body, under a royal charter of privi- leges and immunities, and were termed " freemen of the corporation." In process of time, these bodies, by gra- dual and almost imperceptible additions, grew to suflii- cient size to afford a countercheck to the power of the nobles, and were at last the instruments, not in England only, but throughout Europe, of overthrowing the feudal system, emancipating their fellow. men from degrading ^ bondage, and establishing a government somewhat more in accordance with the rights of humanity^ 142 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF But in this country, founded, in theory and practice, on an acknowledgment, in the broadest sense, of the universal right of equal freedom, the grant of special cor- porate privileges is an act against liberty, not in favour of it. It is not enfranchising the few, but enslaving the many. The same process which, when the people were debased, elevated them to their proper level, now, when the people are elevated, and occupy the lofty place of equal political rights, debases them to comparative servi- tude. The condition of things in free America is widely different from that which existed in Europe during the feudal ages. How absurd then, to continue a system of grants, for which all actual occasion long since ceased, and which are now at utter and palpable variance with the great political maxim that all alike profess ! It is our desire, however, in treating this subject, to use no language which may embitter the feelings of those who entertain contrary views. We wish to win our way by the gentle process of reason ; not by the boisterous means which angry disputants adopt. It has, in all times, been one of the characteristic errors of political reformers, and we might say, indeed, of religious reformers, too, that they have threatened, rather than persuaded ; that they have sought to drive men, rather than allure. Happy is he " whose blood and judgment is so well commingled," that he can blend determined hostility to public errors and abuses, with sufficient tolerance of the differences of private opinion and prejudice, never to relinquish cour- tesy, that sweetener of social life and efficient friend of truth. In a small way, we seek to be a reformer of cer- tain false principles which have crept into our legisla- tion ; but as we can lay no claim to the transcendent powers of the Miltons, Harringtons and Fletchers of political history, so we have no excuse for indulging in their fierceness of invective, or bitterness of reproach. WILLIAM LEGGETT. l43 THE TRUE THEORY OF TAXATION. [From the Plaindealer, December 2-1, 1836.] The Evening Post, in one of its recent excellent arti- cles on the protective system, speaking with particular re- ference to the impost on coal, expresses the opinion that it is the duty of our rulers to lighten the burdens of the people as much as possible, " especially when they fall on articles of first rate necessity ; and it is easy,'' the Evening Post adds, " to distinguish between those that do, and those that do not." We are very willing to see the protective system attacked, either in gross or in detail. If we find that we cannot procure the immediate reduction of all duties to the exact revenue standard, as graduated on an equal ad valorem scale, we must be content to concentrate our forces upon particular articles or classes of articles, and thus attempt to accomplish the overthrow of the tariff, somewhat after the manner that the redoubtable Bobadil proposed to overthrow an army. We are afraid, however, that this mode of operation, in our case, as in his, will fail of effecting any very important result. But while we are willing to join the Evening Post in bringing about a reduction of the tariff, either by piecemeal or wholesale, we cannot quite agree with the sentiment it expresses, as an abstract proposition, that it is the especial duty of rulers to reduce taxes on necessaries, and to discriminate between those which are so, and those which are not. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the true theory of taxation, whether direct or indirect, whether levied upon commerce, or assessed, without any intermediary agency or subterfuge, upon the property of the people, is that which falls with equal proportional weight upon every variety of commodity. While we should contend, with 144 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF the utmost earnestness against the imposition of a tax, the effect of which would be to burden the poor man and let the rich go free ; we should oppose as positively, if not as zealously, a contrary system, which tended to place the load, in any undue degree, upon the shoulders of the rich. We are for equal rights ; for the rights of the affluent and the needy alike ; and we would not admit, in any case, or to any extent whatever, the principle of either laying or repealing duties for the special advantage of the one class or the other. We have had too much already of discriminating duties. If we must raise the revenues of our federal govern- ment from imposts on commerce, the true theory to con- tend for, in our view of the subject, is an equal ad valorem duty, embracing every commodity of traffic. The im- porter of foreign coal will tell you a pathetic story of the hardships and sufferings of the poor at this inclement season of the year. He will borrow perhaps the eloquent language of the Evening Post, to describe the shivering inmates of garrets and cellars, and the poor lone woman who buys her coal by the peck. He will draw you to her wretched abode, and show her surrounded by' her tattered offspring, expanding their defenceless limbs over a few expiring embers that mock them with ineffec- tual heat. When he has raised your sympathy to the proper pitch, he will then call on you to exert your influ- ence to procure the repeal of a duty which places beyond the reach of thousands of shuddering wretches one of the prime necessaries of life, and le3.ves them to all the horrors of unmitigated winter, as it visits the unfed sides and looped and windowed raggedness of the poor. The dealer in foreign grain will have a similar tale to relate. He will expatiate on the sufferings of the indigent from the high price of bread, and ask you to exempt breadstuffs from taxation. The importers of books and charts, and of WILLIAM LEGGETT. 145 mathematical instruments, will talk of the advantages of a wide diffusion of literature and science, and ask for a repeal of duties on those articles in which their trade consists. Colleges will represent that the cause of educa- tion requires their lihraries and laboratories should come duty free. Railroad corporations will point out the many political and commercial benefits that must accrue to the country from Aicilitated intercourse between its distant parts, and ask that their engines and other appli- ances be released from the burden of taxes. All these applications, and many others of a like kind, have some- thing specious to recommend them to a favourable con- sideration, and some have been listened to and granted. The prayers of corporate bodies have been affirmatively answered, while a deaf ear has been turned to those of the ill-fed and unprivileged poor. In our sense, how- ever, they ought all to be treated alike, and all to be re- jected. The only legitimate purpose of a tariff is that expressed by the Constitution, " to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare ;" and the debts should be paid and the general welfare provided for, in strict accordance with the great distinom banking, having no more connexion with it, than if banks did not exist. It should receive its revenues in nothing not recognized as money by the Constitution, and pay nothing else to those employed in its service. The state governments should repeal their laws imposing restraints on the free exercise of capital and credit. They should avoid, for the future, all legis- lation not in the fullest accordance with the letter and spirit of that glorious maxim of democratic doctrine, which acknowledges the equality of man's political rights. These are the easy steps by which we might arrive at the consummation devoutly to be wished. The steps are easy ; but passion, ignorance, and selfishness, are gathered round them, and oppose our as- cent. Agrarian, leveller, and visionary, are the epithets, more powerful than arguments, with which they resist us. Shall we yield, discouraged, and submit to be al- ways governed by the worst passions of the worst portions of mankind ; or by one bold effort, shall we regenerate our institutions, and make government, indeed, not the dispenser of privileges to a few for their efforts in sub- verting the rights of the many, but the beneficent pro- moter of the equal happiness of all ? The monopolists WILLIAM LEGGETT. 327 are prostrated by the explosion of their overcharged system ; they are wrecked by the regurgitation of their own flood of mischief; they are buried beneath the ruins of the baseless fabric they had presumptuously reared to such a towering heiglit. Now is the time for the friends of freedom to bestir themselves. Let us accept the invitation of this glorious opportunity to establish, on an enduring foundation, the true principles of political and economic freedom. We may be encountered with clamorous revilings ; but they only betray the evil temper which ever distin- guishes wilful error and baffled selfishness. We may be denounced with opprobrious epithets ; but they only show the want of cogent arguments. The worst of these is only the stale charge of uliraism, which is not worthy of our regard. To be ultra is not necessarily to be wrong. Extreme opinions are justly censurable only when they are erroneous ; but who can be reprehended for going too far towards the right ? « If the two extremes," says Milton, in answer to the same poor objection, « be vice and virtue, falsehood and truth, the greater extremity of virtue and superlative truth we run into, the more virtuous and the more wise we be- come ; and he that, flying from degenerate corruption, fears to shoot himself too far into the meeting embraces of a divinely warranted reformation, might better not have run at all." "ABOLITION INSOLENCE." {Fro7n the Plaindealer, July 29, 1837.] Under this head, the Washington Globe copies, from a Boston newspaper, the following paragraph : "The insolence of some of the reckless agitators who 328 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF attempt to excite the people by their mad practices, is insufferable. On the fourth, the American flag — the flag of the Union — the national banner — was suspended from a cord extended from Concert Hall to the Illuminator Dflice nearly opposite. In scandalous derision of this glo- rious emblem, every star and stripe of which is as dear to every true American citizen as ' the apple of his eye,' a placard emanating, as we learn, from the Illuminator of- fice, was suspended by the side of the flag, bearing in large letters, on one side, ' Slavery's Cloak,' and on the - other ' Sacred to oppression.' It remained only till it was noticed, when it was soon torn down. It is credita- ble to the assembled citizens who saw the scandalous scroll, that their insulted feelings were not urged to vio- lent exasperation against the perpetrators of the outrage, and that the deed was treated with the contempt it de- served." The insolence of the abolitionists, in the case here ad- duced, owed its insufferableness to its truth. While the people are told that the spirit of the federal compact for- bids every attempt to promote the emancipation of three millions of fellow-beings, held in abject and cruel bondage, and that even the free discussion of the question of slave- ry is a sin against the Union, a " reckless disregard of consequences " deserving the fiercest punishment which « popular indignation" can suggest, we are forced to con- sider the emblem of our federal union a cloak for slaveri/ and a banner devoted to the cause of the most haiefid op- pression. The oppression which our fathers suffered from Great Britain was nothing in comparison with that which the negroes experience at the hands of the slaveholders. It may be " abolition insolence " to say these things ; but as they are truths which justice and humanity authorize us to speak, we shall not be too dainty to repeat them whenever a fitting occasion is presented. Every Ameri-» can who, in any way, authorizes or countenances slaveryi WILLIAM LEGGETT. 329 is derelict to his duty as a christian, a patriot, and a man. Every one does countenance and authorize it, who suf- fers any opportunity of expressing his deep abhorrence of its manifold abominations to pass by unimproved. If the freemen of the nortli and west ould but speak out on this subject in such terms as their consciences prompt, we should soon have to rejoice in the complete enfran- chisement of our negro brethren of the south. If an extensive and well-arranged insurrection of the blacks should occur in any of the slave states, we should probably see the freemen of this quarter of the country rallying around that '* glorious emblem" which is so mag- niloquently spoken of in the foregoing extract, and march- ing beneath its folds to take sides with the slaveholders, and reduce the poor negroes, struggling for liberty, to hea- vier bondage than they endured before. It may be *' abo- lition insolence" to call this "glorious emblem" the standard of oppression, but, at all events, it is unanswera- ble truth. For our part, we call it so in a spirit, not of insolence, not of pride speaking in terms of petulent con- tempt, but of deep humility and abasement. We con- fess, with the keenest mortification and chagrin, that the banner of our country is the emblem, not of justice and freedom, but of oppression ; that it is the symbol of a com- pact which recognizes, in palpable and outrageous contra- diction of the great principle of liberty, the right of one man to hold another as property ; and that we are liable at any moment to be required, under all our obligations of citizenship, to array ourselves beneath it, and wafje a war, of extermination if necessary, against the slave, fo' no crime but asserting his right of equal humanity — the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, and have an unalienable riglit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Would we comply with such a requisition ? No ! rather would we see our right arm lopped from our 28* 330 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF body, and the mutilated trunk itself gored with mortal wounds, than raise a finger in opposition to men strug- gling in the holy cause of freedom. The obligations of citizenship are strong, but those of justice, humanity and religion stronger. We earnestly trust that the great con- test of opinion which is now going on in this country may terminate in the enfranchisement of the slaves, without recourse to the strife of blood; but should the oppressed bondmen, impatient of the tardy progress of truth urged only in discussion, attempt to burst their chains by a more violent and shorter process, they should never encounter our arm, nor hear our voice, in the ranks of their oppo- nents. We should stand a sad spectator of the conflict ; and whatever commiseration we might feel for the dis- comfiture of the oppressors, we should pray that the bat- tle might end in giving freedom to the oppressed. THE NATURAL SYSTEM. [From the Plaindealer, August 19, 1837.] ' The opposition party and the monopoly democrats are alike the friends of an exclusive banking system, but differ widely, as to the authority on which such a system should rest. The one side advocates the monarchical principle of a great central bank established by federal authority, and the other is equally strenuous in favour of the aristocratic principle of state institutions. They both agree in the most extravagant eulogiums of " the credit system," and consider it the source of all the blessings and advantages which we enjoy. They alike disclaim, with seeming enthusiasm, on the resources of wealth which our country contains, on the activity of its industry, the boldness of its enterprise, and the fertility of its invention, ever on the stretch for new and speedier modes of gain ; and they alike demand, with an air of WILLIAM LEGGETT. 331 triumph, what has caused these resources of wealth to be explored, wliat has given energy to industry, confidence, and enterprise, and quickness to the inventive facilities of our countrymen, but the happy influence of " the credit system ?" It is this, they tell us which had dug our ca- nals, constructed our railroads, filled the forest, and caused the wilderness to smile with waving harvests. Every good which has happened to our country they ascribe to the credit system, and every evil which now afflicts it they allege may be eftectually remedied by its aid. But they differ widely as to the mode of remedy ; a cordon of state monopolies being the object aimed at on the one side, and a great central money power the darling pro- ject of the other. For our own part, we are free to acknowledge that if we were confined to a choice of these evils we should not hesitate to decide in favour of the central bank. We are not alone in this sentiment. There are myri- ads and tens of myriads of true-hearted democrats in the land who, if the unhappy alternative were alone presented to them of a federal bank or a perpetuation of the system of exclusively privileged state monopolies, would decide promptly and earnestly in favour of the former. Better a single despot, however galling his rule, than more gall- ing tyranny of a contemptible oligarchy. While a federal bank is not more dangerous to the principles of political liberty, its influence would be less extensively pernicious to public morals. They who live in the purlieus of a monarch's court may draw out but a sickly existence ; but the moral health of a whole country suffers, when it is under the domination of a league of petty tyrants who fix their residences in every town, and taint the univer- sal atmosphere with the contagion of luxurious example. Bad as is the monarchical principle of a federal bank, the aristocratic principle, which would distribute the same tremendous power among a thousand institutions 332 POLITICAL WRITINGS OP scattered throughout the confederacy, is worse. Man- kind suffered heavier oppression under the rule of the feudal barons, than they had ever before suffered when the political power was centered in the throne. But they arr ved not at the rich blessings of freedom, until mo- narchical and feudal tyranny were both overthrown, and the doctrine of divine right and exclusive privilege gave way before that of universal equality. He who compares the financial history of Europe with its political, will be surprised to find how perfect is the analogy between them. Her ingenious and philosophi- cal mind would be well employed in running the parallel. It would be found that political revulsions, as well as commercial, are the inevitable result, sooner or later, of conferring exclusively on the few privileges that belong, by nature, in common to all ; and that all violations of the holy principle of equal rights, while in politics, they produce tumults, insurrections, and civil war, in economy, exercise a corresponding influence, and are followed by panic, revulsion, and a complete overthrow of all the established commercial relations of society. The fundamental maxim of democracy and of politi- cal economy is the same. They both acknowledge the equal rights of all mankind, and they both contemplate the institution of " a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of in- dustry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned." The pre- servation of man's equal rights is the be-all and the end- all of the natural system of government. The great maxim which acknowledges human equality is, in the political world, what gravitation is in the physical — a regulating principle, which, left to itself, harmoniously arranges the various parts of the stupendous whole, WILLIAM LEGGETT. 333 equalizes their movements, and reduces all things to the most perfect organization. Monarchy, aristocracy, and all other forms of government, arc founded on principles which deny the equal rights of mankind, and they all attempt to substitute an artificial system for that of nature. The effect is sometimes to produce a seeming increase of prosperity for a time ; but nature avenges her violated laws sooner or later, and overthrows the un- substantial fabric of presumption and pride. The great end which is alone worthy of the efforts of the champions of democratic and economic truth, is to institute the natural system in all matters both of politics and political economy. Let them aim to simplify govern- ment, and confine it to the fewest purposes compatible with social order, the mere protection of men from mutual aggression. We need but few laws to accom- plish this object. We need particularly few in regard to trade. What is the whole essence and mystery of trade, but an exchange of equivalents to promote the con- venience of the parties to the barter ? Leave the terms, then, to be settled by men^ own notions of mutual con- venience and advantage. There is no need of political interference. Extreme simplicity is usually considered as the con- dition of barbarism, before man has raised himself by science and art from the degradation of mere animal na- ture. But the saying that extremes meet is as true in politics as in any of its applications. Simplicity may be the goal, as well as the starting-point, of social effort. Is it not a fact verified by the observation of every man of cultivated mind, that in religion, in literature, in art, and in the conventional manners of a community, simplicity and refinement go hand in hand ? As society advances it throws off its cumbrous forms and ceremonies ; it fol- lows more and more the simple order of nature, which 334 POLITICAL WRITINGS OF does nothing in vain, but carries on its stupendous opera- tions by the directest processes, linking cause and effect, without superfluous compUcation, and adapting its means with the utmost exactness to the end. Compare the na- tions of the earth, and see if simplicity and refinement are not always found together, in whatever respect the comparison is instituted. In architecture, why are the gorgeous edifices of Constantinople, glittering with "bar- baric pomp and gold," deemed inferior to the plainer structures of the cities in western Europe ? In literature, why are poems crowded with oriental splendour of imagery, and heaped with elaborate ornaments of diction, thrown aside by the reader of taste for those which breathe the unstudied sweetness of nature ? In manners, why do those seem the most refined which seem most truly to flow from the promptings of native amenity and elegance of soul 1 It is because that is most excellent which comes nearest to the simplicity of nature. Na- ture does nothing in vain. Simplicity in government is not less a proper object of those who wish to raise and refine the political condition of mankind. Look at those governments which are the the most complex, and you will find that they who live under them are the most wretched. As governments approach simplicity, the people rise in dignity and hap- piness ; and all experience as well as all sound reasoning on the certain data of induction, bears us out in the con- clusion, that when they conform most nearly to the sim- plicity of nature, then will mankind have reached the utmost bound of political prosperity. Then will the cumbrous artificial and arbitrary contrivance of " the credit system," be abandoned, for the harmonious and beneficial operation of natural, spontaneous credit, the free exercise of confidence between man and man. 335 My selections from 5Ir. Leggett's published works here close. I had hoped to be able to add to this CoUeciion some extracts from his correspondence. But Want of space prevents it. I cannot resist, however, the temptation of closing these volumes with the following beautiful expression of his free and proud spirit. Another occasion may hereafter offer of laying before the public further specimens of his epistolary style. The annexed letter refers to the Congressional election of 183d, when Mr. L. was candidate in the nominating committtio. Copy of a Letter from Wm. Leggett, to AvLEMERE, New RocHELLE, October 24th, 1838. My Dear Sir — Your kind letter of last Sunday came duly to rny hands, as I trust this will to yours. The sanguine terms in which you express yourself, and m which you are not alone, do not inspire me with equal conhdence of the result you anticipate. I have but faint expectations that the nomination of can be set aside, and anoth(!r name substi- tuted in place of his. The same influences which carried him through the committee wiU force him down the throats of the people. The retainers and myrmidons of the office-holders are a numerous, active, and disciplined band, and their leaders have possession of the secret passes of our camp. The great meeting can be packed, as well as the nominating committee. And when you add to the number of those whom venal motives will directly actuate, the smaller, but not contemptible numbers, who will ignorantly, but honestly, approve the ticket as it stands, from fear of creating division in our party, should they do otherwise ; and another number, smaller than either, perhaps, (so at least my self-love whispers me,) who are opposed to me, because they deem me rash, impetuous, and inexperienced, or that I would weaken a ticket to its undoing, otherwise strong enough to be car- ried — when you add these several elements of opposition to me tocether you will find, I think, that they make a sum total much greater than the aggregate of those who regard me in that favourable lighten which I am happy to be esteemed by you. But though we cannot very confidently hope to effect our object entirely, I consider it fully in our power to teach the democracy a good lesson. We may teach them to distrust nominating committees, and all that worse than worthless machinery of party which places the selection of men, and, con- sequently, the deci-iion of great measures, so far from the direct control of the popidar will. They who are loudest and most incessant in the advo- cacy of regular nomination and established usages, know well what power- ful weapons such nominations, and such usages, place in the hands of craft and chicanery. What I am most afraid of is, that some of my friends, in their too earnest zeal, will place me in a false position before the public on the slavery subject. I am an abolitionist. I hate slavery in all Us forms, degrees, and influences ; and I deem myself bound by the highest moral and political obligations, not to let that sentiment of hate lie dormant and smoulderino in rr^.y own breast, but to give it free vent, and let it blaze forth that it may kindle equal aidour through the whole sphere of my influence. I would not have this fact disguised or mystified, for any office the people have it in their power to give. Rather, a thousand times rather, would I again meet the denunciations of Tammany Hall, and be stigmatized with all the foul epithets with which the anti-abolition vocabulary abounds, than recant, or deny one tittle of my creed. Abolition is, in my sense, a necessary and a glorious part of democracy ; and I hold the rigiit and the duty to discuss the subject of slavery, and to expose its hideous evils in all its bearings, moral, social, and political, as of infinitely higher moment than to carry fifty sub- treasury bills. That I should discharge this duty temperately, and should not let it come in collision with other duties ; that I should not let 386 hatred of slavery transcend the express obligations of the Constitution, or violate its clear spirit, I hope and trust you think sufficiently well of me to believe. But what I fear is, (not from you, however,) that some of my advocates and champions will seek to recommend me to popu- lar support, by representmg that I am not an abolitionist, which is false. All that I have written gives the lie to it. All I shall write will give the lie to it. And let me here add, (apart from any consideration already adverted to,) that, as a matter of mere policy, I would not, if I could, have my name dis- joined from abolitionism. To be an aoolitionist, ii to be an incendiary now, as, three years ago, to be an anti-monopolist, was to be a leveller, and a Jack Cade. See what those three short years have done in effecting the anti- monopoly reform; and depend upon it, that the next three years — or, if not three, say three times three, if you please, will work a greater revolution on the slavery question. The stream of public opinion now sets against us ; but it is about to turn, and the regurgitation will be tremendous. Proud in that day may well bethe man who can float in triumph on the first refluent wave, swept onward by the deluge which he, himself, in advance of his fellows, had largely shared in occasioning. Such be my fate ! and, living or dead, it will, in some measure, be mine. I have written my name in ineffaceable letters on the abolition record ; and whether the reward ultimately come in the shape of honours to the living man, or a tribute to the memory of a departed one, I would not forfeit my right to it, for as mauy offices as has in his gift, if each of them was gi eater than his own. What has led me info all this idle, and perhaps you may think, vain- glorious prate, is an apprehension created in my mind by the article in the Kew Era, prefacing an abridged copy of my letter to . That ar- ticle — written, unquestionably, in the kindest spirit, speaks of my letter as showing that I am not an abolitionist. It shows no such thing ; and if I had thought it liable to such a construction, it should never have left my hands. abridged and altered my communication, on his own responsibility, and as soon as I heard from him, that he intended to do so, I wrote to him, admonishing him not to place me in a false position. But I stand by what has done. He has changed my language slightly, and made some omissions : but the letter, as published, represents me truly, as far as it goes. The New Era, however, goes much further, and jumps to a conclusion wide. Heaven knows, of the truth. As yet, I do not perceive that there is any absolute need of my interfering in the matter , but let me solicit of your friendship, to have a personal eye, as fai as you can, to the doings of these gentry. Their next step may possibly be, to place me before the commu- ty, as a pro-slavery champion. Keep them, for God's sake, from commit- ting any such foolery, for the sake of getting me into Congress. Let — — and and others of like kidney, twist themselves into what shapes they please, to gratify the present taste of the people, but as for me, I am not formed of such pliant materials, and choose to retain, undisturbed, the image of my God. Excuse me for scribbling all this farrago to you ; but I am really anxious not to be placed before the public in a false and discoloured light. I do not wish to cheat the people of their votes. I would not get their support, any more than their money, under false pretences. I am, what I am ! and if that does not suit them, I am content to stay at home, praying God, in the meantime, to mend their taste, which prefers a " mought and a moughl," not democrat, to one who is, at least, honest and zealous in their cause. Yours' truly, WM. LEGGETT. «AY2 ?>949 %^^ ^° "^^d^ •ar ,^'^^\ Kj )5 <5<, •^^d^ \^<5' V "^_ " ^v ..% 95. " ^c^^: « ^ h^ ■^ 1^] ■ o .. ^ „ ^/> ^6. " ' . 7 ^■^ f|- < o '"^VLO^ c . <^^ cP "*" " » ./: %. a\^^ \> ,- '^ * A '^ Cf^ ^^. 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