The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

The following MEMORIAL is circulating in the State of Pennsylvania.

State of Pennsylvania.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The Representation and Memorial of the undersigned Citizens thereof.

Your Memorialists observed, with great regret, the rising of the Legislature in March last, without passing a law for the appointment of Electors of the President of the United States.

It is unnecessary, and might be unfavorable to temperate deliberation, to enter into a consideration of the causes, which prevented the enacting of a law giving to the people an opportunity of making a choice, in the manner heretofore invariably practised in Pennsylvania; Nor do your memorialists conceive, that any Public Good could arise from a demonstration, that the districts proposed would not have produced an expression of the Public Will in this State.

An extraordinary Meeting of the Legislature having been called by the Governor's Proclamation, to take place in November, a number of the Citizens of the State beg leave to lay before you, their earnest wishes on the occasion.

We hope nothing will, by any means, occur to deprive Pennsylvania of her full share in electing the President. We are the more earnest upon this subject, because this great, populous, and opulent State, though it has always generously declined to propose one of its citizens for the Federal Chief Magistracy, is left without any concern in the conducting of the five Executive and Law Departments, and without any share in the Supreme Federal Judiciary Departments, and without any participation in the numerous foreign missions. All the states on the Delaware, with the exception of a New Jersey Judge, are in the same situation.

Facts so well known, and so important as these, will receive the consideration of a wise and faithful Legislature, who will not fail duly to estimate their vast consequence. This state would most sensibly feel so extraordinary a deprivation of its just share in the great Departments, if it were likewise to be ultimately deprived of Electors, for choosing the President of the United States.

It is not from a mere spirit of jealousy, but from a just and necessary prudence, that you memorialists beg leave, most earnestly and urgently, to press upon your attention the known determination of the Eastern states, to choose their Electors by the ballot of their Legislatures; so as to secure the appointment of men friendly to those two personal interests in our country, which have given to Massachusetts and Connecticut the exclusive command of the Executive Powers.

The taxable property, productions, imports, and commerce of this great state, we probably equal to those of Massachusetts and Connecticut together, and will increase more in the next four years. Yet these two states have the lead and ascendancy in the Presidential council, in the direction of the influential departments of the purse and the sword, and in the most important missions to Great Britain, France, Germany and Spain, and the two first seats in the supreme judicial court; while there is not a single Pennsylvanian to protect the rights and interests of the state in any of those appointments, or in any other direction of a department or in any mission. These hard and undeniable truths demand the more serious consideration, because Pennsylvania enjoys but a sixteenth part of the votes in the Senate; though we have probably a sixth of the white population, and of the taxable and dutiable property; an extensive foreign trade; and 28 millions of territory, happily situated as to climate and centrality.

The late Elections for Congress have given a clear and certain indication of the Public Sentiment in this State. There will appear to be elected ten or perhaps eleven Members, by majorities favorable to such an alteration in the Federal Chief Magistracy, as might relieve Pennsylvania, and the middle States, from the evils complained of; and we cannot but suppose, that the Electors of the other two or three would sacrifice inferior considerations to secure the Elective Right of Pennsylvania, and distributive Justice among the States; which is necessary to confidence and harmony. It is our policy to be as much united in securing a Chief Magistrate known to be just to Pennsylvania, as Massachusetts and Connecticut are determined to be in securing a President, & Vice President, who with their Friends may continue to preserve an undue share of the Executive, Judiciary and Diplomatic powers in their hands.

Your Memorialists, therefore, relying on your faithful attachment to their just Interests and Rights, respectfully hope, that you will proceed to make, by the established Legislative mode of joint ballot, such an appointment of Electors as will express the evident will of Pennsylvania and secure that legitimate weight in the Federal Councils and Proceedings, of which she has been so long and so clearly deprived.

And in order that this state may not be hereafter exposed to the danger of being unrepresented in the person of either of the first magistrates of the Union, we beg leave to suggest the propriety of the Legislature, establishing by law, the mode of appointing the Electors of President and Vice-President in future, by a popular election, as we earnestly wish that they may never again be chosen in any other manner, than by the immediate voice of the people; and although necessity obliges us at this moment, to have recourse to a less desirable mode, we are anxious that such measures may be taken for the future, as that it may not be drawn into a precedent.