The Portland Gazette

MISCELLANY
FEDERAL POLICY.

The following paragraph is from the Baltimore Federal Republican, and exhibits, at one view, the relative merits of the two great political parties.

The facts which the writer has here briefly stated, ought never to be forgotten. The time may come when the early supporters of federal measures will be rewarded for their services, in the general approbation of a people at present misguided.

The present political tranquility everywhere manifest is an honourable testimony of the excellence of federal policy—it is evidence not to be resisted, an authority from whence there is no appeal—it is a confession extorted from the mouths of our political enemies themselves; it is not in the power of man to pay a higher compliment than this. Let it only be remembered that the great measures of policy now pursued by our administration, are all federal measures—that the army, the navy, and the bank, were originally federal measures—that the present party came into power by an opposition to all such policy: that the cry of the democrats then was that the bank would render us subservient to English influence, that the army would put our liberties in jeopardy, and that the navy was only a branch of royal policy, and would eventually reduce the nation to a state of bankruptcy. It was in vain that the federal party attempted to combat with these shadows: the alarm was sounded, the tocsin was rung, and the men who projected these measures, were dismissed from our public councils. When the democrats had gained the ascendancy, they practised on the principles which they professed while out of power—the navy was abandoned, the bank was sacrificed, and philosophical expedients for defence adopted—an embargo was laid, and it became criminal almost to look at the salt water—our frigates were supplanted by those sea-monsters called gun-boats. In short, after the democrats had put all their projects to the proof, they at last discarded them with contempt—the gun-boats were sold at public auction—a navy was again rebuilt—an army was kept up, and a national bank, with a larger capital than the federal party ever dreamed of, was established.—This, we repeat, is a compliment to the federal party paid by their enemies, and the strongest possible evidence of the excellence of the federal policy.