Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

Our paper of this day contains THE CHARTER OF AMERICAN SLAVERY, That sacred and invaluable instrument which the people of this devoted country were taught to revere as the bulwark of their liberties, has been prostrated at the feet of a proud and ambitious partisan, the constitution has been immolated upon the altar of democracy, but thank god we yet claim, and mean to exercise at the hazard of our lives, the liberty to think, to speak, to write and to act. Be it in the power of man to ponder upon the instrument which barters away his freedom, we earnestly beseech our fellow citizens to read, study, and read again while he can keep down his rage, the law to enforce the embargo which was approved by the President on the 9th inst.

We repeat what we have before said, and what has been solemnly declared by, the soundest patriots in the senate and house of representatives, that this law is unconstitutional, that it infringes the dearest rights of freemen, subverts the whole civil jurisprudence of the country and prostrates the liberties of the nation. It is a law fraught with the most terrible and alarming consequences, and we contemplate with horror the mischief it will carry in its train. None deprecate more than we do the effects of civil discord and disunion. We are alarmed and shudder at the idea of forcible resistance to government. The fear of such an event must fill every bosom with dismay. but when a combination of mad and infuriate demagogues goad on the people to a state of phrenzy and despair, what but the most disastrous consequences must ensue. The desperate adherents of rulers drunk with power have been solemnly warned, they have been implored not to pass a law, which freemen never would submit to, but their admonitions were derided, their entreaties spurned. They who when the last blow was aimed at the liberties of the nation dared to break its fall, they who at the awful moment when the deed of our subjugation was to be executed ventured to raise their voices in vindication of the insulted majority of the people, have been scoffed at, abused, their feelings outraged by the charge of toryism and treason to their country. It is for the enlightened freemen of the country to decide who have acted the part of traitors, who in the hour of trial have deserted their country and enlisted under the banners of a faction which is driving the nation on to ruin.

Black must be the heart that plotted this fatal attack upon the honour, the happiness and liberty of a free people.

"They who can sin to deeds like these. their deeds be on their head."

[Fed. Repub.