Winchester Virginia Republican

FOR THE REPUBLICAN,

On the 17th of March last, a committee of vigilance and correspondence, favourable to the re-election of John Quincy Adams to the presidency of the United States, was held in Franklin, Pendleton county. The proceedings of this committee were candid, but tempered with mildness and generosity. There was not a sentence uttered by the members of this body, or by any one of them, that could, with propriety, be said to be derogatory either of Gen. Jackson or his party. But notwithstanding this reservedness of proceeding, they have not been able to shield themselves from the showers of calumniating epithets which have, upon all occasions, been poured by the idolatrous worshippers of Gen. Jackson upon the supporters of an administration that has defied the vile assaults of defamation, and continues to stand as conspicuous for its wisdom, virtue and integrity, as the meridian sun for the brilliancy of his rays.

This assertion will be sufficiently verified by adverting to the United States Telegraph of May 24th, in which will be found two communications, the first addressed to Duff and Jarvis, and the second to the above recited committee. The first commences thus: "The Ebony men have had a meeting for the purpose of enlarging," &c. Now the stripling has, through mistake, very happily applied the epithet; for ebony is a tree of the palm kind, and much celebrated on account of its density of body, the fineness of its grain, and the smooth polish and shining varnish of which it is susceptible;—a beautiful emblem of the gentlemen who composed that committee. He proceeds: "Out of 178, added to their list, 60 of them are known to be favorable to the election of Gen. Jackson; of the remainder, several are on the fence, some are non freeholders, and many have no existence save in the imagination of these petty intriguers," &c. The 60 of whom the gentleman makes mention, are of a class, who are not overstocked with knowledge, and whom it is expected to carry for Jackson by the potent influence of his leader in the county. The non-freeholders I know nothing about, but believe, from good authority, the statement to be false. The gentleman's assertion respecting those who existed in the imagination only, is founded upon this feeble authority: either the secretary, or the printer, misunderstanding the secretary, did not spell the names precisely with the same letters by which the persons themselves had formerly done, and thereby made some slight alteration in the pronunciation. A great cause, indeed, to draw from the gentleman's lips so mellow an encomium.

The other address referred to, is the production of the gentleman's own deceitful imagination. His ungenerous and clandestine mode of proceeding, he has set up as the standard measure, into which he pours every man's flask. His blind zeal, heightened by the warmth of party spirit, and the servile fear of his patron, from whom he derives his greatness, have led him to believe that every man who has spoken a word in favor of Jackson, would readily sanction his libellous and defaming publication, though heaped upon the most worthy men of whom his county can boast. But the gentleman is mistaken. There are some reflecting and coolly deliberating Jacksonians, whose pacific disposition and strength of nerve are superior to the inundations of party spirit. Such were some of those whose names the gentleman has "so unwarrantably used" as being the authors of his second address.

I shall close these remarks by stating, that if the people of the United States have become pampered with pride, from a long course of prosperity, and have forgotten the obligations under which they are placed towards that Being to whom they are indebted for the blessings of their free institutions, and He is determined to visit them with a scourge for their ingratitude, I would pray with David.—Let them fall into the hands of the Lord, whose tender mercies are over all his works, and not into the hands of a man whose ambition for power knoweth no bounds, and whose thirst for blood cannot be quenched.