Virginia Argus

From the LYNCHBURG SPY.

[Published by desire]

The Rev. JOHN CARR, of Halifax County a preacher of the Gospel among that class of christians denominated Baptists, a late Congressional candidate for the district composed of Campbell, Pittsylvania, and Halifax.

SIR,

Get place and wealth, if possible with GRACE;
If not, by any Means, get wealth and place !!!

As you have, without consulting me on the subject, attempted against my will to represent me in Congress I shall avail myself of the privileges of a freeman, guaranteed by usage and the constitution through the medium of a free press candidly to examine your aptitude, and the methods you have used to obtain popular favor, and supplant the incumbent. To this, I am not impelled by any of the dirty passions that generally influence the actions of men; not by envy, avarice, hatred or malice; no, my motives are of a superior order. In nothing can you be my personal competitor, as I am determined neither to go to congress nor to preach; and my immediate pursuits and condition being of that humble, unambitious cast and character, as not to excite the envy or the odium of any one man breathing. Hence, as our views and objects are the very antipodes of each other, and as there is scarcely a possibility of collision in any shape, and as it is on political ground only, and as respects your Conduct in the late contest for a seat in congress, that I address you, on the score of Courtesy I claim from you the boon of equal attention, as I paid to you, for indeed I was attentive during your harangue on the 11th of March last, at Campbell Court House, the first, and I may say the only, time I ever saw you.

Confined as I am within prescribed limits, prolixity must if possible be studiously avoided and yet it will not be irrelevant to remark that nature has not acted towards you the part of an invidious stepmother; altho' your stature be not gigantic, your presence is rather pleasing than otherwise. I protest not against your KING-WILLIAM NOSE— nor yet complain because your tongue is somewhat cramp't as to house room. My objections against that member are quite of a different kind, and shall be presently enumerated. Your countenance tho' a good one manifests a certain air of archness, which ill nature might denominate cunning; but as I know but little more of you than what you thought proper publicly to reveal on the day mentioned, "out of thine own mouth shalt thou be judged."

"I'll speak of you as you are, nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

With Orators in all ages, whatever may have been their end or aim, objects or pretensions, it has always been a chief point to engage an attentive, patient hearing. by a modest concise view of the proposed subject, founded at least on professions of candor and of truth. Whether or not you requited your hearers according to their merit, you succeeded eminently in the principal aim for the regard paid to you was truly deferential— and you ought not to have been disingenuous when you made the most of it by taking a brief review of your past life. To the very tip top of the clouds you extolled your own democracy. humanity, honesty, correct habits, sound principles, &c.&c. and you blushed not; and by the most forcible contrast and antithesis, as far as you dared under the favor of law, you condemned the conduct, habits, and principles of the man whom you wished to supplant.

"I am," you said," and have been since I was capable of forming an opinion on the subject, a Democrat, at home and abroad in all the relations of life, as neighbor, husband and master I have been a Democrat. I have wronged no man. I defy the world to say that I ever defrauded the widow or the fatherless of 20 shillings in my life. I am no tyrant either at home or abroad. The man that plays the tyrant at home, in his own family, would be the tyrant out of it, if he dared, or had the power."

Now, Sir, this if true is all very well—but you produced no certificate of its authenticity. Tis a naked assertion: and by the principal person interested in the farce and to make the most of it, extreme zeal, not discretion or modesty constitute its principal characteristics. Your importunate ardor to establish your own democracy, honesty, &c. &c. by your own assertions, put me much in mind of the outrageous virtue of some strait laced, prudish, antiquated fair one, who, after having enjoyed the stolen sweets of erring humanity, mercilessly Condemns the occasional lapses of a frail sister, with design to screen her own trips and blemishes from imputation, or the prying eye of curiosity. Your own clamour on the subject and the politics of the men by whom you are principally supported (the federalists) excites strong suspicions in the minds of reflecting men that, your democracy is but a name, a lure to inveigle the credulous and incautious to place you in a station for which I deem you totally incompetent, and unworthy.

Your occupation as a preacher for ten or a dozen years back, has imparted to you Confidence and facility in the delivery of your sentiments, and a pretty smart dash of theatrical gesticulation and grimace give you somewhat the air of a sacerdotal comic actor, which to some was not disagreeable. and has aided you admirably in your electioneering frolic.—With a face full of fun, you told the multitude at Campbell Court House that "at the age of 15 you had a call to preach the gospel—and you obeyed the call. You had another call to take a wife—and you married. You had a third call to get a child, and you got a child."

To a business so pleasant in operation, as TrISTRAM SHANDY denominates his four cardinal virtues, to be sure you were not averse or refractory. No. Revd. Sir. tis admitted on all hands that you did not demur —that you never wanted courage when put to a shift ; and this, as you know , is a kind of domestic ditty, that for the sake of harmony. must be properly Da-Capo'd: and even to the present hour, you retain the reputation of beating time to a miracle; and of still possessing a very fine bow-hand.

With the best natured countenance imaginable, you acknowledged that your last call was to go to Congress, if the people would permit you; but you did not deign to tell whence came this last call, whether in to above or below, or who was to play second Middle in the home department during the session; or whether the Baptist stock was to be dispersed. or devoured.

Tis time to be serious—Permit me cooly. and solemnly, to declare to you, Mr. Carr, that this exhibition excited in my soul the most painful disgust : for altho' not a bigot to any creed, my heart swells with reverence and respect at the presence of true devotion wherever found: and frequently have I been an eye witness to it, in individuals of more sects than one: and as often have I bowed in silent humility, and profound reverence to the eternal source of all true Religion.

Your conduct on this occasion appeared, and still appears to me, an abominable profanation of the sanctity of character, which a preacher of the Gospel, and a minister of Christ, is bound to maintain. To devout men you have given scandal by the levity of manner and the indecorum of the means, which you have employed to effect a purpose for which the most intelligent think you unfit and not trust worthy. Throughout this whole electioneering campaign how unlike the late GORRING, the Reverend President of the German Lutheran Church in the State of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, have you conducted yourself

At an early age Mr. Goering entered the functions of the Gospel ministry, and according to his godlike disposition he loved all those who were seeking and serving their Creator, no matter of what denomination they happened to be. In him were combined the true christian and scientific gentleman ; his manners and conversation were agreeable, instructing, and entertaining; he was a man of profound erudition and a perfect linguist -He was a Pennsylvanian by birth and a Patriot from principle; of course he always took delight in the welfare of his country.

So sensible were his fellow citizens of his sound judgment and talents that, he Grand jury of York county recommended him as a suitable person for a representative to Congress, which he declined to accept, having, as he said, dedicated himself solely to the ministry of Christ—What a lesson this to the electioneering Parsons of the present time ' But you, Sir, have had the modesty to class yourself with the venerable WITHERSPooN the late learned President of Princeton college; and because in the early years of our Independence when talents, character, and learning were so essential to impart tone and motion to the general government of the old confederation, he had been prevailed on to serve as a delegate to Congress so must the Reverend John Carr be now sent and when there "at intervals he would preach—and pray—but not dance jigs—get drunk—or play up." Your mountebank grimace and tricks in uttering these words with an air of significant allusion, as if you knew that such were the practices of the man you opposed, while they drew forth the smile of the many, excited disgust in the breasts of the discerning—But, Sir all you have uttered on this occasion, or elsewhere, as far as has yet come to my knowledge, in point of moral turpitude, falls far short of the following declaration:

"I come not my fellow citizens," you said, "to oppose any man. I know of no other candidate but myself, I have heard of none, for none else has offered; and consequently none will have cause to complain. Should any other offer, or appear, then tis I, that will be opposed, and that will have Cause to complain; and not the man who may hereafter offer. But, gentlemen, it is not only possible but probable that another may offer : and not only offer but resort to foul slanders & stories to promote his own ends, and defeat my election. But should any of you, my friends, hear such slanders uttered, Smite the slanderer on the face, and say to him " Get thee behind me Satan."

I entreat you, Reverend Sir, to pause for a moment, and dispassionately to examine the substance and tendency of the foregoing quotation from your speech at Campbell court house ; and if this letter shall be so fortunate as to meet your eye and chain down your attention even for one short hour, deign I beseech you to reflect a while on the following brief passage borrowed from one of the most distinguished disciples of liberty the world ever knew ; and at your leisure, after comparing its substance with the foregoing, appropriate to yourself just as much, or as little of it, if any. as you may suppose rightly appertains to yourself.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying may produce in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he beguiles
with a Priestcraft—! Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this."

Fearless of contradiction I will venture to affirm that, during and throughout the last 16 years every living human being in the counties of Campbell, Pittsylvania, and Halifax, has repeatedly heard the name MAT. CLAR, uttered, as the congress man for this district; and that, at each successive period of election, he has been considered a candidate, as absolutely and effectually even if silent on the subject as if he had pronounced his determination in the most public and explicit manner throughout the whole country; sir a publication totidem verbis, could not be more absolute, than his being the INCUMBENT & such for ever will be the honest interpretation of common sense, until a public declaration to the contrary shall be made.

Now, Sir, let me ask in the face of Heaven and the world, what atonement can you make to the insulted majesty of truth, the light of which you were bound to disseminate?— what apology can you offer to your attentive Campbell hearers, for the abuse of their confidence in your attempt to impose on their understandings, by asserting that which was not; and finally with what face can you now return to your congregation and attempt to enforce the moral precepts of the gospel of Christ? A priest too pledged to the precept and betraying one of the fundamental principles of the Gospel—availing himself of the best dispositions of the human heart, reverence for holy things, and their functionaries, and all for the purpose of gratifying his ambitious views and hopes of aggrandizement; for according to your own confession you would make a job of the appointment, is such a phenomenon as must excite the astonishment and execration of the world.

In the ordinary intercourse between men of reputable standing in society. it is deemed highly disgraceful and disingenuous to prevaricate or misrepresent facts; the man destitute of truth, or who is guilty of such foul deeds forfeits his pretensions to character and credibility, and sinks into dishonor. But your conduct in the late election is not the only ground of objection to you as a Congress, or assembly man.

The secular power should for ever be kept distinct from the sacerdotal—worldly concerns can well enough be managed by men of the world, without the interposition of Priestcraft or priestly agency. No adulterous union of church and state should ever be tolerated in America : for if that evil hour shall ever arrive, or befall this country, then farewell for ever to the liberties of the Nation— the fate of Rome crumbled into ruins by corruption, priestcraft and king craft; and the tyrannical sway of modern despotisms, a mongrel compound of regal, episcopal, and prelatical combinations would soon be our lot.

But of this there can be no danger while the press remains free to refute error and vindicate the rights of man.

Bound down to certain limits, I am constrained to desist; but Mr. Carr, you shall hear from me again; and a brief sketch of that man's public life over whom you attempted to crawl into congress shall also be given.

Till then, Sir, go on ;
Get place and wealth if possible with grace;
If not by any means, get wealth and place.

TICKLER.

NO. II.

SIR,

" Get place and wealth, if possible with GRACE;
"If not, by any MeANS, get wealth and place'!!"

When a man enters into holy orders or assumes the functions of the priesthood, no matter what may be the creed or profession ; no matter what may be the nation or country ; no matter what may have been the age or epoch, a renunciation of temporal concerns and considerations always constitutes and has constituted a principal part of the declaration or Ceremonial of the sacerdotal investiture : and in all acts, as well of conduct as Conversation, a sober, solemn, and exemplary demeanor, has been assumed, sometimes, and I hope not infrequently the result of piety and true devotion; but not seldom have those masks been assumed for purposes too dishonorable to be particularised, In the former instance there exists a strong analogy between the honorable, the useful and exemplary life of a pious, enlightened, clergyman, and that of a highly cultivated. dignified matron shedding light and happiness & usefulness around her progeny and all her domestic concerns; and how strong and striking is the contrast between the priest dirobed of his sacred character and innocence— grasping at the wealth and honors of this world, with an avidity alike regardless of discretion, principle, and truth; and the once chaste fair one unfortunately fallen from the envied blissful heights of virtue and virgin purity to the lowest grade of dishonor, and female wretchedness and shame.

To my mind AN APOSTATE PRIEST presents the most frightful picture of human depravity, that society in its worst degraded state is capable of furnishing. Stripped of restraint save what the halter of penitentiary flings in his way, and regardless of public opinion, methinks I see such an one let loose on the world who some 20 years ago flung behind his back the neat attire of God and gospels of Christ and in room thereof grasped a ten per cent diabolical cutler. wielded without mercy, and stained in blood, where with the heart strings of distress have been rent from time to time. Imagination sketches further the monster, futureless. and tottering on the brink of a yawning grave prepared to swallow him up for ever, and still with vulture veacity
growing in groping for the sanction of unrighteousness, insatiable as hell.

The heart sickens at this horrid picture which the imagination has created, and although such a character may exist, to you, Sir, this representation to this extent, can have no immediate relation; and the contrast just exhibited can only serve to shew the danger of departure from established moral rules --for as in female aberrations, the slightest lapse may lead to the utmost depths of infamy, so ought no man to trench upon principle or venture to trust himself in iniquity, and say "thus far shall I go."

Although I cannot now deign to pursue your electioneering progress either on Stonewall or throughout Lynchburg-the use you made of the pulpit in the one place, nor the acts practiced in the other to obtain the public ear and the public voice. I have nevertheless measurably conferred on you celebrity by the notice I have taken of you; nor will that celebrity be transient-it will endure even longer than the lifetime of Jack Cann : for your electioneering tricks thus in part put on record will be held up in terrorem to future candidates for popular favor; and it may serve as a mean of repressing and finally extinguishing one of the most inflammatory practices ever exercised or tolerated in a free country, and amongst freemen : that of going from house to house and from one public place to another soliciting votes by false promises and whiskey. "Tis true you told the Campbell multitude that " you did not come to deluge them with whiskey ;" and many of them did not like you one jot the better on that account, but I affirm that you have done what in a political, or moral, light was not less, perhaps more destructive, for you misrepresented facts and asserted what was not strictly the truth-you attempted by sophistry to impose on the understandings of the ignorant and uninformed and you succeeded; and had the issue depended on the voice of the people of Campbell, to their disgrace be it recorded, you would have succeeded to a seat in congress ; & by your chaterbox oratory would you have wasted the public treasure for the ensuing 2 years at the rate of from 3 to 5 hundred dollars an hour ; and if I mistake not egregiously, from your mock heroie manner you would be pretty much of a floor member--often on your timbers ; and add considerably to the post stilential malady, that already has proved so much the curse and disgrace of Congress and the nation, words, words, words, without either energy or action.

Let me not be mistaken. I am not the advocate of perpetunl succession. Civil ofices should go round-for rotation and recurrence to first principles are indispensable for the preservation and purity of the constitution. I deride not, like the immortal, but apostate, Burke, short periods of public service ; who in his philipic against the French revolution likened the members of the constituent Assembly of France to CHIMNEY-Sweepers thrust out of ofice and disqualified at the very juncture they became masters of their trade, but I disapprove, & shall oppose to the uttermost of my means, the base, disgraceful, dishonest and dishonorable electioneering tricks practised time immemorial only by the unworthy.

I approve from my soul of the high-minded, honorable conduct of the younger Adams, a late Congress Senator from Massachusetts, when on the misrepresentation of Pickering and the British Boston partizans, enemies of the embargo and of American happiness, and liberty, the Legislature of that state uttered censures on his senatorial services. Take back, said Adams, your trust--I disdain even for one hour to be its depository after my fidelity is questioned.--Such now should be the language of Clay, at any rate to the Citizens of Campbell County ; nay to the whole district, for although his votes generally, will bear the test of the most rigid scrutiny, there are enough in all quarters of the district not less competent; and I repeat it " civil ofices should circulate ; but men of aptitude and superior intellectual endowments will not stoop to the ordinary electioneering practices of the present time ; and as yet no system has been adopted in this district to obtain the general sense of the people by concert or nomination."

But Mr. Carr, although I affect not the influence of inspiration I predict with confidence that you will never fill an arm-chair in Congress Hall nor even in the Legislature of Virginia. You will probably occupy the same shelf with Doctor Mack; "Tis large enough to hold you both. New combinations will arise throughout this state before the next congressional election that will shake the seats of even some of the oldest members of congress : and in the new allotment of congressional districts, in consequence of the late census which will take place in the Virginia legislature the session after next; and which would have been organized next winter, were it not for the want of the necessary data, (the returns of some of the Virginia deputy marshals) new and unexpected candidates will start up, with pretensions and qualifications and support, that would throw all your influence and exertions were they treble what they are, completely into the back ground.

The delegation elected a twelwe month hence to the state legislature will have much in their power, and no doubt they will make the most of it : and however barren, comparatively, of intellect any Virginia assembly my happen to be, there will always be found in it a number of men of elegant and solid accomplishments, superior to the quota of representatives, the state may at any time from her population be entitled to send to congress, independently of vast numbers who seek no public employments, and surely then Sir there is not in the district such a dearth of talents as to be reduced to the sacriligious necessity of robbing any pious congregation of their spiritual guide, and guardian.

You have yielded to the delusion, and the dream, still,still possesses your understanding. that you have been selected and supported by friends who were convinced of your aptitude and would sustain you throughout. True; on the occasion under consideration they did sustain you ; but you remember well enough the use the monkey made of the Cat's paw- Supposing that you would be more easily dislodged than Clay, who by the bye used to possess an admirable electioneering turn, a few astute fellows that are always to be found almost in every county, village, and district; and who are tortured with as keen thirst and appetite for the good things of this world, the
MATTHEW CLAY.

Pursuant to my first plan, and promise, I had designed, without entering into the sanctuary of domestic retirement, to have given a short sketch of this gentleman's public life and character; but finding myself anticipated on the subject by a writer in the Star of last week, who signs himself "a Pennsylvanian," it is deemed superfluous, especially at this time, to take up the subject.

It has I find already been publicly announced that Mr. Clay has been elected to Congress for the next two years:At the expiration of that term it will be for the people to say whom they will then send; nor should this important commission be confided to casualty or to the electioneering artifices of any factions demagogue, or sly, insidious, plausible, prating upstart. The merited attention should be rightly, and diligently, and in time conferred on a subject that embraces the best interests of the nation : and which in this quarter heretofore, has been most shamefully neglected. Should Mr. Clay, intermediately, or at the close of the term for which he is elected prefer the shades of retirement to an attempt again to discharge the arduous and important duties of a Congressional delegate, he will, no doubt, as well from inclination as from a sense of duty, to a district by which he has been so signally, and repeatedly honored, seasonably notify his constituents of his determination.-At any rate as the people are not yet become a chattel, the PEOPLE should take care of themselves.

TICKLER.