Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

FROM THE MUSEUM:
"A few plain questions on an important Subject."

Messrs. Editors,

Should the bill lately reported to Congress and published in your paper concerning the District of Columbia be passed what will be the effect?

Will not the jurisdiction of the District be thereby assumed, to all intents and purposes, by Congress: and will not the operation of the first section, which declares that the present laws of Virginia and Maryland shall continue in force, be to adopt those laws, as the laws of Congress, or in other words to re-enact them as effectually as though they had all been copied verbatim in the bill and headed by a preamble declaratory of the intention to take that as a code of laws, whereby to govern the District, and the more especially, as the act of 1790 accepting the cession of the states, declares that "The operation of the state laws within such District shall not be affected by this acceptance until the time fixed for the removal of the government thereto, and until Congress shall otherwise by law provide"?

If this be so, under the article of the Constitution relative to this subject, and the laws of the two states making the cession, are not the good people of the District of Columbia thus at a single blow, severed from the Mother States, and made as completely foreign to Maryland and to Virginia, as if the District were to be suddenly transported to the other side of the Ohio River?

If I am right in this apprehension,
what a strange and deplorable situation are we not placed? Are we not disfranchised to all intents and purposes? Situated in the midst of the free and happy States of the American union, are we not doomed to political slavery?

Will not every man resident within the ten mile square become a nonentity, in all political relation? Can he after the passing of that short but important bill, vote at any election? Participate in the choice of Delegates to the General Assembly of Virginia or Maryland? Can he henceforth vote for any member of Congress, or for the President and Vice-President of the United States? I believe it will be found he cannot. Estranged from Maryland as will be that part of the District on the North side of the Potomac, will this state permit a people removed from her, governed by a different power, to meddle in her affairs and to influence in any degree the elections of Montgomery or Prince George's County! Or will Virginia allow that portion formerly in her county of Fairfax to meddle with their Elections?

I think not. It is so contrary to all propriety, and all principles of government, it cannot be expected.

Ought not then, the people inhabiting the District, to assemble in their different towns and neighbourhoods, consider this all important affair maturely; and if they see the consequences I think I do, join in respectfully petitioning Congress to forbear legislating on the subject, until provision be made by some adequate form of government, to preserve unto us those political rights, and privileges, which every true American holds so dear--and of which it cannot be the wish or intention of our brethren of the different States to deprive us.

A CITIZEN OF COLUMBIA.