Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

ALEXANDRIA ADVERTISER.

MONDAY, AUGUST 16.

The following appears to me to be so striking a character of a neighbor of mine, that I cannot resist the propensity I have to give it a place in my paper.

The pliancy of democratic editors, and the facility with which they accommodate themselves to existing circumstances is most astonishing—But lately, there were no means however base and detestable which falsehood and detraction could suggest to a malignant heart, which were not called in to aid in the pious work of destroying the confidence of the people in our rulers. Of this the polluted columns of the Democratic papers furnish abundant evidence. Point us out the individual who shared in the federal administration, and whose sentiments were accordant with it, however obscure his rank, who was not in some form or other, assailed by the foul breath of calumny. Who had the hardihood to pronounce, even immortal Washington, a Traitor and a Tyrant? To charge him with having perpetrated every crime which has ever blackened the annals of meanness or depravity? Credulity herself may be staggered, but it was the very men who now affect to make it a virtue to speak respectfully of rulers. Having succeeded by hook and by crook, in getting into power the men who may delight to praise them, they have become forsooth mighty sticklers for the sacred, the inviolable majesty of office.

One of this accommodating gentry, lately had the assurance, unblushingly! no, decency must have exacted the tribute of a blush, to offer as a proof of his republicanism, that he had a religious regard to that sacred injunction, "thou shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people." Are not our present rulers indebted to this very "evil speaking" for their elevation to office? Did not Mr. Jefferson, "the man of the people," the pure the virtuous Mr. Jefferson himself, pay one hundred dollars to one of these democratic editors for writing a libel on his competitor for office—a libel, for which Callender, the instrument of this detestable baseness, was sentenced by a court of justice, to make atonement by fine and imprisonment: The people cannot be at a loss for the motives of such men.