Litchfield Enquirer

FOR THE ENQUIRER.

No one can contemplate the present state of our country without a solemn conviction that one of the two events must soon take place-Reformation, or Revolution. The signs of the times are manifest and most portentous; and scarce a breeze comes over us, which does not bear upon its wings the tones of admonition and alarm. From the north and the south—from the east and the west-we hear the notes of preparation for political conflict-a conflict between the friends of the Constitution and the favorers of Executive usurpation. The great interests of our country, identified as they are with our growth and prosperity, are disappearing with fearful rapidity before the swelling tide of selfish and dangerous principles. When we see the moral sense of the nation outraged; the authority of the laws defied; and the sanctity of the constitution trampled upon : when "Reform" has become synonymous with "turning out," and "retrenchment" with "prodigality;" and when, to use the language of General Jackson himself, "corruption has become the order of the day"—we ask, and seriously ask, if it is not high time for the people to awake to action. It is no time now to be idle. Fire-side patriotism will not save us. The field must be taken; the consecrated banner of liberty unfurled; and the whigs (a name ever dear to freemen) must rally around it.- Action-action-is the watchword-and let every patriot feel that he has an important part to perform in the terrible struggle against Executive power. There are no exempts. The country calls upon all; and with language which no patriot can resist invokes them, by the sacrifices and the blood of heroes, to sustain those institutions which heroes established. At a time like the present, when the temple of freedom is shaken to its base by the furious attack of vaulting and unprincipled ambition-when the Executive patronage is exerted in all its mighty energies to control elections, and to perpetuate usurped authority -when the Post Office Department is converted into a tremendous electioneering engine-and the rottenness of corruption is pervading every county and village in the Union-at such a time, silence is a crime —and inactivity, treason. The salvation of this country depends (under Divine Providence) upon the union and efforts of the whigs. If they do their duty, our institutions, dearly and justly cherished as they are, may be preserved. If they sleep, the tree of liberty, whose fruit the nations of Europe and America have tasted. and which has prompted them to a larger and sweeter repast, will be cloven down, and the deadly Upas of despotism planted in its stead. Whigs of Litchfield County! are ye prepared for this humiliating-this shocking exchange? If not- awake!

SEVENTY-SIX.