The Madisonian

TO THE REPUBLICANS OF THE UNITED STATES.

A year has elapsed since we first issued our Prospectus for the publication of the Madisonian. During this eventful period we have been engaged in a severe conflict, as interesting and important to the Republic, as any that has transpired since its organization. The cause, and our course, have attached to us many friends which will not permit us to retire as we contemplated.

A period has arrived, therefore, when it has become necessary, in justice to ourself and the public, to indicate our course for the future.

It is well remembered that the Madisonian was established in the conviction that the great character and interests of the country, as well as the success of the administration, required another organ at the seat of the National Government. Born in the Republican faith, and nurtured in Republican doctrines, we were desirous of seeing the leading principles of the party to which we were attached, preserved and carried out, not only in theory, but in practice. We pledged ourselves to sustain the principles and doctrines of the Republican party, as delineated by Mr. Madison, and came here in good faith to support the present administration upon the principles which governed the party which elected Mr. Van Buren, and upon the pledges by which that election was secured.

We have, throughout, strictly adhered to those principles. Had the Executive of this nation done the same; had he received in the spirit in which it was offered, the advice of his best friends, the continuance of this paper would not have been necessary, nor should we have beheld the distracted counsels by which he is governed, or have seen the disjointed and defeated party by which he is surrounded.

No Chief Magistrate, since the days of Washington, ever came to that high station under more favorable auspices than Mr. Van Buren. A combination of circumstances, which seldom transpire, clearly indicated the way to the affections of the people, and gave him the power to have disarmed opposition by the very measures which would have established his popularity. But, ill-omened and evil counsels prevailed, and the hopes of that political millennium, which many Republicans cherished as the fulfilment of their creed were disappointed and postponed.

Whilst the Madisonian and its friends were endeavoring to restore the prosperity of the country, the Executive and his advisers were urging forward measures directly calculated to destroy it—to keep the country convulsed and prostrate—measures, subversive of the principles of Republican government, and tending to the establishment of an unmitigated despotism. Accompanied as they were by a war upon the CREDIT SYSTEM of the COUNTRY, and an unusual spirit of intolerance, denunciation and proscription, justice could not have required nor honesty expected any support from consistent Republicans. In that spirit of independence and love of freedom which characterized the founders of our institutions, we resisted these nefarious attempts to depreciate and destroy them, with the best of our ability. The same spirit which prompted us to do this, finds no justification in supporting the men who made it necessary.

It is an incontrovertible truth, that every prominent act of this administration has been an open, unequivocal violation of every principle and profession upon which Mr. Van Buren was elevated to the Chief Magistracy by the people.

In his upholding the specie circular, which made discriminations unauthorized by law, and which had been twice condemned by Congress;

In his recommending the Sub-Treasury scheme, contemplating a union of the purse and the sword, and the subversion of the entire practice of the government, and still persisting in it, notwithstanding it has been four times condemned by the Representatives of the people;

In his recommendation of a Bankrupt law to be passed by Congress, applicable only to corporations, so that this government should possess an absolute control over all the State institutions, and be able to crush them all at pleasure: and taking all jurisdiction over them from the hands of the State tribunals;

In his breaking faith with the States, by recommending a Repeal of the distribution law;

In his repeated recommendations of the issue of Treasury notes, to supply the place of legal money, recurring thus to the exploded and ruinous practice of depreciated government paper money, for a circulating medium: thus exercising a power derived only from a loose construction of the Constitution, and repudiated by the best Republican authorities;

In his attempt to establish a Treasury Bank with an irredeemable paper-money circulation;

In his effort to overthrow the State Bank Deposit system, established by President Jackson, and take the public moneys into his actual custody and control;

In his attempt to divorce the government from the interests and sympathies of the people;

In his attempt to create a "multitude of new offices, and to send swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance";

In his attempt to "take away our charters, abolish our most valuable laws, and alter, fundamentally, the powers of our governments;"

In his display of sectional partiality;

In his cold indifference to the interests and wants of the people during a period of extreme suffering;

In his attempt to throw discredit upon, and eventually, to crush the State banks, through the revenue power of the government, and embarrass the resumption of specie payments;

In permitting the patronage of his office to come in conflict with the freedom of elections;

In his open contempt of the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box;

In his attempt to cram obnoxious measures down the throats of dissenting brethren by means unbecoming a magnanimous Chief Magistrate;

In his refusal to acquiesce in the decisions of the majority; and

In the despotic attempt of his partisans in the U. S. Senate, on the 2d July, inst. to seize the public treasure, by abolishing all law for its custody and safe keeping.

He has abandoned the principles by which he came into power, and consequently, the duty which they prescribed; and he has so obstinately persevered in his erroneous course as to preclude all reasonable hope of his retracing it.

And finally, to this long catalogue of grievances we may add, what may be considered a minor offence, but certainly a very obnoxious one, that contrary to all preconceived opinions of his character, Mr. Van Buren has rendered himself the most inaccessible, both to friends and adversaries, of all the Chief Magistrates that ever filled his station.

And from all these considerations, to what conclusion can the nation come, but that their Chief Magistrate is either wanting in integrity, or wanting in capacity?

We need not say that we expected different things of a public servant, bound by his sacred pledges, to regard the national will as the supreme law of the Republic. That blind infatuation which has heeded not this rule of the American people, must and ought to meet its reward and sink in indiscriminate and everlasting overthrow.

The financial policy of this Administration cannot be sustained upon any principle of necessity, expediency, utility, practical philosophy, or sound economy. Its plain object, the perpetuity of power, and its plain effect, the destruction of the banking system, require, of course, too great a sacrifice from the American people to be, for a moment, tolerated.

The great desideratum, a sound, uniform, and convenient currency, and a system that will equalize, as nearly as practicable, the domestic exchanges, is demanded by the practical wants of the people, and, sooner or later, in one form or another, will be obtained by them. To accomplish this end, and to preserve and regulate the credit system of the country, which this administration has attempted to impair, will be one of the great objects for which we feel constrained to continue our labors.

No Administration of this Government can prosper, none deserve to succeed, that is not Conservative, both in theory and practice. Enlightened improvements, and liberal practicable reforms may be permitted and encouraged in our system, but violent measures of destruction, and unrestrained extremes of innovation, should not be suffered with impunity by those who wish to preserve unimpaired the most free and perfect form of government, yet devised for the enjoyment and protection of mankind.

Political toleration should be as liberal and extensive as religious toleration, which is guaranteed by the constitution.

Ultrasim in whatever party or shape it may appear, should be repudiated and sturdily opposed.

The place of Government should not be permitted to degenerate among us in a vulgar pursuit of party advantages, nor the lofty ambition of real statesmen into a selfish and perpetual scramble for office. Let the example and the fate of this administration be a monument and a warning through all future time.

Our labors shall continue for the promotion of sound principles, and the general welfare of the country, rather than the selfish ends of personal or party ambition.

Phiny by the father of the constitution, would be inconsistent with the support in any contingency of a man whose whole course of measures has been but a continual violation of every sound tenet of Republicanism, and one continued crusade against popular rights and national interests.

At a proper time, the Madisonian will be prepared to sustain, for the highest offices in the government, such "honest and capable" candidates as public sentiment shall seem to indicate—such as shall seem best calculated to concentrate the greatest Democratic Republican support—to overthrow the measures which have, thus far, proved destructive to the best interests of the country, and at the same time to send into retirement the men who have attempted to force them upon a reluctant and a resisting people.—

Above all, such as shall be most likely to preserve the CONSTITUTION of the country to perpetuate its Union, and to transmit the public liberties, unimpaired to posterity. We constantly remember the name we have assumed; and we shall be unworthy of it whenever the preservation of the constitution ceases to be our first and chief object.

We are not to be understood, in any view, as forsaking DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN principles. The merit of apostasy belongs to the Executive, and the friends, whose political fortunes he has involved.

Those principles, in any event, we shall firmly adhere to, and consistently and ardently support.

In endeavoring to accomplish these great objects, there will undoubtedly be found acting in concert, many who have heretofore differed on other matters.

That they have honestly differed, should be a sufficient reason for not indulging in crimination and recrimination in relation to the past. Let former errors, on all sides, be overlooked or forgotten, as the only means by which one harmonious movement may be made to restore the Government to its ancient purity, and to redeem our republican institutions from the spirit of radicalism, which threatens to subvert them.

That small patriotic band, that have dared to separate themselves from a party to serve their country, now occupy a position not less eminent than responsible. They hold the Balance of Political Power.

Let it not tremble in their hands! And as they hold it for their country, so may the Balance of Eternal Justice be holden for them.