Jenks' Portland Gazette. And Maine Advertiser

FROM THE PATRIOT.

"O that estates, degrees and offices
Were not derived corruptly; that clear honor
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!"

PARTIES.

It is a consideration of the highest moment to our government that the purity of elections should be preserved inviolate; that the suffrages of the people should be given for their rulers, unaffected by the violence of party spirit, uninfluenced by measures that militate against a fair and unbiased declaration of the public will.--When a system of favoritism is adopted by any administration that tends directly or in a remote degree to give an undue influence to a particular political sect in our elections; when extraordinary measures are pursued by an executive, to secure the continuance of his power; when odious distinctions are countenanced, and political divisions promoted for purposes abhorrent to the genuine principles of patriotism; such measures merit the reprehension of every friend to the government. By bestowing offices of honor and emolument on active partisans destitute of merit, merely as a reward for their exertions in securing access to a party, the invaluable security of our rights, our elective franchise, this boasted privilege of freemen, may be turned into an engine of incalculable mischief to the government, and our liberties be eventually endangered.

When executive patronage is extended with a partiality censurable in the extreme, when clear honor is not purchased by the merit of the wearer, nor the questions asked, is he honest, is he a friend to the constitution, as necessary requisites to presidential confidence, dangerous indeed must be our situation. When the persecuting spirit of a wicked intolerance, denounces a portion of our citizens as political heretics, and the doors of honor and confidence are shut and double bolted against them, what is it but tyranny; what is it but a vain attempt to bind the opinions of men and enslave the mind.

The precedent established by the present executive in his system of removals and appointments--rewarding his avowed partisans for their important services, at the expense and ruin of faithful public servants of different political sentiments, if pursued, must eventuate in a violence of party spirit that will break down all the barriers of virtue, and expose our country to eternal discord. Our elections will exhibit scenes of unparalleled contention, and the hungry partisan eager for the reward which he is assured will attend success, will stop at no means, nor cease from exertion till his purposes are accomplished, and he is remunerated with an ample share of the favors to be distributed by the prevailing party. This system is miserably calculated to restore harmony to social intercourse; it ill accords with the declaration that "we are all federalists, we all republicans."--It is at once an avowal of party distinctions, and strikes a fatal blow at the freedom of our elections.--The language which this precedent speaks to the restless and ambitious, will be heard with a promptitude fatal to our peace. "Use your exertions to give me power," says an aspiring demagogue to his partisans, "and if successful, you shall have your reward in the emoluments of office. Place me in the presidential chair, and a liberal distribution of the loaves and fishes shall compensate you for any service you may perform.--Give me power and I will forget right: and the places of those who now (however meritoriously) possess the confidence of their country, shall know them no more, but the doors of honor and confidence shall be burst open to you, and you only, who have espoused my cause and secured my election." Censurable indeed must be a measure that in its operation will produce consequences so fatal to the peace and happiness of our country; that will keep alive party animosity and tend to great injustice in the distribution of the offices of government; that must lead to the alternative of sacrificing merit to considerations of policy; and which will terminate in corruption, bribery and every species of evil, to which an elective government can be subjected.