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 'r KEMARKS ^ 
 
 On the Attack of the '•Famili/ ^gis'' iipon Jiulqe Allen. 
 
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 For somo months past the JE^^ has been longing to 
 attack Jndfije Allen with far nior<? venom than it has had 
 ^-rtrtfTige to tject. It is i^ow not man} veekri since the 
 senior editor of that paper, under the pretence of a com- 
 plunentary notice of Judge Allen's appointment to the 
 bench of the Supreme Court, ventured to stab his rep- 
 utation by charging him with a purpose to dissolve the 
 I nion. When the heir apparent of that paper was, in a 
 jiioment of hypocritical congratulation, suddenly but not 
 unkindly rebuked by the Judge for falsely aspersing his 
 character, he cringed under the reproof, and meanly 
 apologized for his deliberate scandal by attributing it to 
 haste and inadvertena/. But the animal that can inadvert- 
 entlj/, and Avithout provocation, go out of its way to strike 
 its fangs mto the passing traveller, should not be suffered 
 to lurk by the way-side without putting the public on 
 th'?ir fTiirtrd J»g^>'»<at its j»»b'^iitv-n".d its A'enoxn. I£ Jxld^^ 
 Allen had been a man of trick and perverse ambition ; if 
 the course of his life had marked him as greedy for office ; 
 if, instead of having exliibited a rare indifference to the 
 loaves and fishes of party or popular favor, he had, like 
 some whom we miaht name, hankered after and voraciously 
 snatched at every loaf and slice and crumb which this 
 party held out to-day, and that to-morrow, the ^Egis would 
 have been less entitled to our animadversion, and less 
 deserAing of chastisement from that community it has been 
 anxious to impose upon. But that paper is not enough 
 understood by those whose interest it is to know and de- 
 spise it. The bland accents of a demagogue ma}- come 
 from the heart of a tyrant ; and he who flatters the public 
 with honied praises, may utter liis sweetest words whuii 
 intent on stabbing its most faithful friend. The JE<As 
 should never be looked upon except as a family paper in 
 the most selfish siguificancy of the phrase. This plain and 
 demonstrable fact the public have no right not to know, or 
 to lose sight of The CA'idence of the fact is so full and 
 clear, that to deny it would be an example of effrontery not 
 less gross than the fact itself For nearly half a century 
 
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the JEgis has served o?ie famUy under the pretext of serv- 
 hig the public ; and that family it has served with equal 
 devotion and constancy. By that family the ^Egis was 
 established; in that family it has been owned, by that 
 familv it has been edited, and for that family it has been 
 used \o an extent and with an efficacy which it hardly be- 
 comts the mtoHigfmce and the honor of the county to admit. 
 Not to call* the j^Egis a family paper, would be to miscall 
 it ; and iioi to bring before the public this its narrow ami, 
 habitual use and constant effect, would be to keep silence 
 at a time vrhen the public has the most need of a full and 
 fearless voice, that it may know the why and the wherefore 
 of influences Avhich, without such knowledge, would not be 
 likely to be baffted or resisted. 
 
 The press is a power of no ordinary might, and it should 
 be the public's. It is notoriously the power by which 
 offices are filled and emptied from year to year. In town 
 and county, in state and nation, the press is the great 
 machine which lifts men up and casts them down. In 
 short it is the mighty instrument which wields individual 
 and public destiny. Evident as is this truth to all, none 
 know i! so. well as those who have used it long and actively 
 to raise themselves into power. 
 
 Within the limits of the county of "Worcester, it so hap- 
 pens there is one family not marked by extraordinary 
 gifis of genius, unusual resources of wisdom, or suspected 
 excess of virtue, who within the last half centurv have 
 enjoyed more, and more important, public offices, and with 
 more constancv than anv other familv, however numerous, 
 however endowed, and however virtuous, in the whole 
 commonwealth. So much a matter of course has been 
 their possession of office, that the public Avould be far more 
 puzzled to find Avhen they were out, than when they were 
 in. To call all this the natural effect of marked superi- 
 ority and desert, would be to contradict the most obvious 
 truth; and to call it mere luck, would be as rational as to 
 toss up coppers all day and expect all heads up at every 
 fall. For a uniform effect there must be a uniform cause. 
 And for a long succession of extraordinary effects, a steady, 
 extraordinary cause must be sought to explam it. And 
 how, then, shall the problem be solved, that one family 
 should " so get the start of this majestic Avorld, and bear the 
 palm alone ?' How has the great power that lifts up one 
 and casts down another, happened to work such a family 
 
result? It is easily explained: ^family press has done it. 
 That is all, and that is enough: that is indeed an extraor- 
 dinary cause, and the extraordinary effect is but the natural 
 consequence. During nearly half" a century oi family office 
 holdiiic/, the ^Egis has been a family paper iov family ojficc- 
 making. For nearly the -whole of that long term, that 
 paper has been owned, jointly or in part, or been under 
 mortoao;e to, or edited bv, that family. It has been under 
 its thumb, and used to subserve its interests, with the most 
 selfish fidelity. As there has been no such instance of the 
 monopoly of office, so there has been no such instance of a 
 family paper. 
 
 During that long period of press-ownership and ofhce- 
 monopoly, the ^gis has, both clandestinely and unblush- 
 ingly, as the case might require, been used to bepraise 
 and elevate its owners and their satellites, and to defame 
 ^ and depress such as would not yield their personal virtue 
 IT- and independence to family dictation for family promotion. 
 1 In short, the ^Egis, in all the ups and downs of party, 
 3 whether in old democratic or later whig ascendancy, like 
 the famed Vicar of Bray, has had but one principle, ojfice, of- 
 fice, OFFICE. In all nights this has been its pole-star, and 
 in all days this the luminary it has worshipped with flaming 
 zeal and devoutest constancy. The result we have already 
 stated. Many have wondered at the effect, while but few 
 have understood the cause. The cause and the effect are 
 adequate to each other ; and the fomier being explained, 
 the mystery of the latter vanishes. The public will no 
 longer feel the blow of an unseen hand. Hereafter, when 
 it strikes, it will strike with a seen motive, and the hollow 
 pretence of ''patriotism" will not conceal the malignity of 
 • sheer and arros'ant selfishness. 
 
 And yet this same ^Egis, this identical family paper, is 
 the very one that inadvertently would make the public 
 believe that Judge Allen is a traitor, aiming to dissolve the 
 Union — a man far better known for declining than for 
 accepting office — one who has repeatedly refused • such 
 offices as honorable men might honorably aspire to. But, 
 if his past and well knoMu life is any pledge of consistency, 
 he will never, for any office in the public gift, stoop to the 
 meanness of keeping a pensioned herald of his own fame ; 
 he will never consent to elevate himself, his kith or kin 
 by his own or a subsidized press. They who have monop- 
 olized that meanness will never find a competitor in Judge 
 
Allen. He has neither skill nor aptitude for such a voca- 
 tion. Even if he could consent to compete in such an 
 enterprise, rivalry would be hopeless. Half a century's 
 experience is a capital that should warn a novice to leave 
 off competition before meddling with it. 
 
 We should have passed over in silence the earlier, 
 unprovoked assault of the ^Egis on Judge Allen, had not 
 that paper, assummg to be the oracle of the public, while 
 in fact the devoted engine of seliishness, again inadvertently 
 assailed the very same individual to Avhom it had, so few 
 weeks ago, hypocritically and cringingly apologized. The 
 last number of that paper, true to its venomous instinct, 
 has charged Judge Allen with what it represents as a base 
 dereliction of duty — an abuse and perversion of a high 
 public trust — a violation at once of personal and public 
 honor, while a chain-bound member of the late ' ^^ hig 
 National Convention. If the age of a certain venomous 
 reptile is known by the number and size of its rattles, we 
 might on the same principle attribute to the editor of the 
 ^gis a fullness of years beyond his otherwise apparent and 
 -:ble youth. The naturalist who has studied the 
 -^. . i will be at no loss to determme, from infallible 
 rriRrks, the maturity of the individual. 
 
 . the edi or of a family pajier would fain make the 
 c fJiat all honor and integrity reside and abide 
 ^ViCn ins magnanimous self, and that Judge Allen has, of a 
 sudden, turned his back on those principles he has so long 
 looked in the face ; that he has all at once become recreant 
 to that high character for which he is so well known and 
 has been so much honored in and by this Commonwealth. 
 
 And is this in reality the idea of personal honor and 
 public virtue, held and proclaimed by the editor of the 
 ^Egis, that when one becomes a member of such a Conven- 
 tion he parts with his own manhood to worship whatever 
 idol intrigue and treachery may carve out for his abase- 
 ment 1 — that at the sound of the so-called whig cornet, 
 flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery and dulcimer, and all kinds 
 of ratifying music, he be ready to fall down and worship 
 the image falsely set up, or that same hour be cast into the 
 midst of a burning fiery furnace ? If this is tlie great idea 
 of honor which fills that editor's bram and moves his 
 mighty heart, let him have the whole of it — yes, all, — it 
 is a fit monopoly for the editor of a family jjress ; but of 
 this let him be assured, that he lives in a conununity in 
 
which liis base counterfeit of lienor will not be circulated 
 without detection and infamy. He may call it wlii^j^ gold, 
 lettered with the inscription of whig liberty, but the rust 
 and canker of slavery are on it ; the image and the super- 
 scription belie each other. 
 
 Did not Judge Allen do himself, his District, and his State 
 an honor — did he not honor humanity — did he not strike 
 a blow for principle, when, in the face of the most formida- 
 ble tyranny, the tyranny of party rancor, ambition, and 
 greedy lust of oihce, he calmly and tirmly stood up in the 
 midst of that crowded CouAention, with its ten thousand 
 surrounding vociferous ratitiers, he, in the ancient spirit of 
 his native Commonwealth, and m her behalf, " spurised 
 THE BRIBE ? " Massachusetts will not forget these words, 
 and in the fast coming campaign for old fashioned whig 
 principles, those memorable words will be shouted as the 
 battle-word of her victorious legions. 
 
 Was it not the very time of times for Judge Allen to 
 utter just what he said, when his vote was demanded by 
 the drill and disciplme of an army of delegates, "v^liose 
 marching and counter-marching, whose wheeling, halting, 
 display of columns and final charge, had been determmed 
 by the clandestine tactics of slave-holders and free State 
 renegades at "Washington — a subject on which a lai'ge- 
 chapter we refrain at present from recitmg ? Was it not yet 
 enough, Mr. iEgis, that the free States have been msidted 
 and trampled on for so many patient and forbearing years I 
 — that they have been practically shut out of the Lnion — 
 that they have been excluded from the highest public 
 trusts — that thev have been made the mere hewers of wood 
 and di'awers of Avater for an iron-heeled despotism — that 
 high capacity and stem integrity ha^e not been passports 
 to public office and public honor, which of themselves re- 
 quired nothing else ] that subserviency to the basest insti- 
 tution which curses the country and scandalizes mankind, 
 has been the great, the indispensable qualification for 
 national patronage'? that the constitution has been noto- 
 riously and outrageously violated to wrest from a neigh- 
 boring country her free soil, to sow it ^^•ith the curse and the 
 cruelty of slavery ^ Was Judge Allen, as the Delegate of this 
 Congressional District, bound in honor and conscience to 
 ratify that which went and was contrived to ratify this 
 domination over the free States '? A^'as he sent from this 
 District to acquiesce in and help forward a nomination that 
 
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 was gotten up and controlled by the master spirits of des- 
 potism, and who had imposed it on that Convention for no 
 other purpose than to secure and spread wider that baleful 
 oppression ? Was he sent conscience-bound, for himself 
 and his constituents, to jom the shout for another slave- 
 holder, who had doggedly refused to intimate his party 
 predilections, and from whom, in the last hour of necessity, 
 had been stjueezed a few dubious hints of Avhat he politi- 
 cally is or Avill be ] Did the constituents of Judge Allen 
 tie his honor and manhood, neck and heels, at home, and 
 toss his s^jiritless body into the national whig convention, 
 to be the automaton of a cheated party, to cast a vote 
 and swing a hat by the wire-pulling of an invisible hand ] 
 Did they expect or desire him to be the instrument of a 
 mere party crank, itself turned by a secret hand, to register 
 his and their vote for another slave-holder to be the chief 
 magistrate of twenty-five millions of people in thirty States, 
 who had given no proof of statesmanship but his life in 
 the camp, or his slaughters on the battle-field of an uncon- 
 stitutional war, waged for the perpetration of a crime 
 against all the commandments of God and all the rights of 
 mankind ] 
 
 We know not precisely and fully whence the editor of 
 rhe ^.oJS deiived his notions of dutv and masnanimitv, but 
 We do Iviiow that an honorable people will scorn to endorse 
 ■f-^'^ni or. bare aiiy thing to do with them, except to despise 
 such a memorial of their aiitbr.?''^ -foDy and shame. 
 
 But, forsooth ! the ^gis pomjDously proclaims the sin 
 of Judge Allen as having been committed in the " open 
 conclave of Massachusetts and Virginia!'' What the ven- 
 erable editor means by '■^ open conclave'' we shall not puzzle 
 our wits to discover. If he intends to lull his readers Avith 
 the solemn fact that Massachusetts and Virginia were 
 locked np out of doors, he is welcome to all the income of 
 such wisdom. If he hopes by fustian and grandiloquence 
 to humbug men of a decent understanding, he will impose 
 on nothing but his own stupidity. 
 
 But the learned editor would have the public believe 
 that Judge Allen could not, without forfeiting his honor, 
 speak out his manly sentiments m the Convention, because, 
 alas ! it was " a National Convention," " gathered together 
 once more to consult on the general velfare, and to resolve 
 for the common good?" Alack-a-day! And is a representa- 
 tive, when acting as a representative, bound to the folly 
 
and madness of the majority ] This is a new leaf in the 
 book of free princi])lcs and representative ri«i^hts. The 
 sentiment is steeped in the very (>ssence of tyranny. Touis 
 Phillipe, "when in power, wonld liave stereotyped this 
 article of your faith as the iie phta ultra ortliodoxy of 
 despotism. It is the very anchor of hope to the American 
 slaveholder. Let the North imbibe this doctrine, and the 
 dough is all leavened in the lump, and ready to be moulded 
 into any form of dishonor the South may require. 
 
 And is not Congress a '■'■ National'^ Congress, "gathered 
 together once more to consult upon the (jeneral welfare, 
 and to resolve for the common good \ Aye, and who knows 
 but that it is as much in '• open conclave " as '• Massachu- 
 setts and Virginia" ? And pray tell us, ^Ir. ^T^gis, what 
 better reason could von have offered for Judge Allen's 
 declaration of his free, deliberate opinion as to what the 
 '-'■ general welfare " and the '• common good " required in 
 such an emergency as this \ Does not your own argument 
 destroy what it was meant to support? Must ]Mr. Hudson, 
 the worthy representative in Congress from the same Dis- 
 trict which Judge Allen represented in Convention, must 
 he. because Congress is a '■^ JVationdl"' Congress, in '■'open 
 conclave" with " f 7>Y//«m," "to consult upon the general wel- 
 fare and to resolve for the common good,'' vote with a sla^-e- 
 holding or slave-ridden majority to expend 150,000,000 
 dollars for the conquest and dismemberment of Mexico, to 
 perpetuate the slave power of the national government, and 
 to spread wider its cruel inflictions, and to perpetuate 
 those cruelties through future generations? Away with 
 such nonsense to your masters. It must have been fabri- 
 cated for your •• Mrginia" masters, and not for home con- 
 sumption. Perhaps some crmnbs of comfort may drop 
 from their table. 
 
 But the whole explanation of the trouble is, that Judge 
 Allen is too true a Avhig for those who are false. The 
 whig spirit of '76, which declared tliat ''all men are born 
 free and equal," is yet alive in liim. He does not wear 
 the livery of a whig to conceal, l)ur to make known his 
 principles. Tlie day is at hand when all true whigs of 
 Massachusetts will honor him for his open, fearless mani- 
 festation of whig principles in the Convention at Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 But the young gray-beard of the -I'gis — when was he a 
 whig ? How long has anybody known him as such ? 
 
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 When did he put on his new coat in which to read homi- 
 lies to Judge Allen 1 and when will he not be ready to 
 cringe and fa^\^l in any garb that will commend him to 
 the smiles of rising power? Let the public mark him, 
 watch him, rebuke him, so long as he wields the power of 
 a family press against " the general welfare " and the 
 " common good." 
 
 Let the public be more than ever on their guard at this 
 critical juncture of events. Deceptions will crowd from all 
 quarters to cheat men out of their principles, and to per- 
 suade them to violate their plainest and most imperative 
 duty. The present season is full of momentous conse- 
 quences. An unusual combination of events gives new 
 encouragement to be steadfast for the true, the right, and 
 the 'good. The platform of liberty is becoming broader 
 and firmer to men's view, and more are ready to plant their 
 feet upon it than the fears of many believed to see. Let 
 no man, however "honest" he may have been called, 
 beguile you of your principles, or turn you for a single 
 moment from their consistent measures. Set your faces as 
 a flint, at once and forever, against the fables with which 
 the Atlas and its brood of satellites will fill the air, to 
 deceive, if possible, the very elect of freedom's host. When 
 tiiey cry, " Lo, here,'' or " Lo, there,'" believe it not. They 
 will tell you, Taylor is a w^ool-dyed whig, and has ex- 
 pressed his intention not to use the veto power, except in 
 extreme cases. Remember that he is a large slaveholder, 
 and that to such the interest of slavery always makes an 
 extreme case. Even now the ridiculous story has been put 
 into circulation, that General Taylor is opposed to the 
 extension of slavery, although the w^hole Whig South in 
 Convention, as one man, hustled him into nomination on 
 account of his well known hostility to the principles of the 
 Wilmot Proviso. And, we are ashamed and grieved to say 
 it, even our reputed " honest " Senator at Washington has 
 defiled his hands by casting into circulation the gross and 
 stupid falsehood. Is it not time even for the careful to be 
 more than ever on their ouardl Let every man make 
 principle his watch-word ; and, whoever may come into 
 power, nothing will so prevent his doing mischief as the 
 firm maintenance and emphatic expression of your princi- 
 ples ; while nothing will gi\'e those principles future and 
 greater power so certainly as their present and most deci- 
 sive use. Plus Ultra. 
 
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