Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

MR. PICKERING'S LETTERS.
To the People of the United States.

There has lately been published an excellent little pamphlet entitled "The Road to Peace, Commerce, Wealth and Happiness," adapted to the understanding of every man who can read: and if the advice of the "Old Farmer," who wrote it, were followed in other states, as it has been in Massachusetts, in the late elections, those great blessings would soon be restored.

The object of the "Old Farmer" was to convince his brethren and all others, by whose labors government is supported, of past errors in the choice of rulers, whose measures have ruined our commerce, diminished our wealth, and rendered as unhappy: and who, chiefly, have exchanged our peace for the calamities and miseries of war. They have only, then, to correct those errors, and choose rulers of the opposite character to reverse the scenes—to escape those evils, and recover the blessings of peace, commerce, wealth and happiness.

With the same great objects exclusively in view, I have stated facts which my public situations brought within my notice; and, with the right equally pertaining to every other citizen, I have freely expressed my sentiments of public men and public measures; believing an exposure of the former not less essential to a reformation of abuses, than the just censure of their measures. An eminent writer remarks—“Measures not men” is the common cant of affected moderation; a base, counterfeit language fabricated by knaves, and made current among fools. Such gentle censure is not fitted to the present degenerate state of society. What does it avail to expose the absurd contrivance or pernicious tendency of measures, if the man, who advises or executes, shall be suffered not only to escape with impunity, but even to preserve his power, and insult us with the favor of his sovereign? Junius wrote in England. In the United States, the People are the source of power, the Sovereign, by whom ministers, public servants are appointed; and rarely has the power and favor of any sovereign been equally perverted and abused. To prove this to my fellow citizens, has been the object of the statements and plain observations I have at any time presented to their notice, respecting men as well as measures. For in a republic or elective government, where the people choose their chief ministers, a knowledge of the candidates is essential to a wise and prudent choice; and if they prove unfaithful, an exposure of their public character and conduct is essential to the correction of their abuses, by stripping them of power, and substituting faithful men to administer the government. On this ground, I add one more address; and its subject is: the sinister means by which demagogues, the great pretenders to patriotism, arrive at power in a free state.

Among the means of preserving public power in the present hands, the partisans of our national rulers are continually reproaching those citizens who question their wisdom, virtue or patriotism: And if the investigation of their measures show them to be destitute of all those qualities, then such enquirers after truth are denounced as the friends & advocates of Britain; as taking the part of the enemies of our country. God forbid that I should ever do this, in thought, word or deed. On the contrary, in every act of my life, I have been opposed to the enemies of my country. The greatest of those enemies are the men who have directed and controlled the affairs of the United States, since Mr. Jefferson, in an evil hour, became their President; and especially from the year 1806, when the seeds of mischief, previously sown, had visibly vegetated, and have since yielded annual crops, more or less abundant, of evils and calamities, and finally produced an unnecessary and unjust war—a war by which Great Britain has become an unwilling enemy—compelled to be such by our rulers. The latter, & the French government, jointly and severally, I have long considered as the only real enemies of the United States; and therefore, according to the measure of my knowledge of public affairs, I have so aimed to represent them to my fellow-citizens; that both might be deprived of power and influence in this country; when, and when only, the sufferings we have long been sustaining, and the heaviest of all calamities which we now feel, will have an end.

The Road to Power in a Free State.

If an artful villain slip from the pocket of an individual his watch or his purse, or palm upon him money or notes ingeniously counterfeited—all men make common cause with the sufferer, to find and bring to punishment the thief and the cheat. But crafty politicians, under false but plausible pretensions of love & devotion to a whole people, may steal their affections and then despoil them, not of their property only, but of their rights and liberties; and the citizens who detect and expose the public cheat, instead of being hailed as the people's friends, are often reviled and treated as their worst enemies. Various causes contribute to produce this seemingly strange result. The petty cheat stands alone or has but a small band of associates; and all are the refuse of mankind. The public cheat, the politician, who, veiling his real character, has by systematic hypocrisy, acquired popularity, sets out with the advantage of education, perhaps of wealth, and of reputation; in a word, with all the attributes of a gentleman, and in the garb of patriotism. With these habiliments, in this fair outside, industriously exhibited through his numerous agents: some of them honest, but deceived by gross appearances, he employs to the view of their friends and neighbors; others, corrupt, willing to receive, in hand or in promise, the wages of iniquity, from word to tongue propagate lies and slanders against the uprightest citizens who stand in his way: and thus he advances to the object of his ambition.

Whether by such means Mr. Jefferson and his numerous adherents did, for twenty years past, succeed to deceive those citizens whose knowledge of public affairs their three S's—salary, situation and sinecure—would reflect upon the federal government begun soon after Mr. Jefferson took a seat in the cabinet as secretary of state; and the reach is not until the National Gazette. 150. gr. 792, another hits patronage, and t need by a clerk in his office. where received a salary (on the public treasury as treasurer of the loan office for South Carolina.—They will also recollect the Aurora, in which paper slanders of Washington and the federal administration were so frequent, or rather so constant, that an Aurora without them, I have heard it remarked, was considered as a phenomenon. The yellow fever took off its first editor prior to Mr. Jefferson's presidency. The public reward of the succeeding editor are well known: first, for some years, the lucrative place of printer and stationer to one or both houses of Congress: the second, the lieutenant colonelcy of a regiment conquered by Mr. Jefferson: the third, the office of adjutant general, recently by the appointment of Mr. Madison. No one will forget one atrocious libel on Jefferson Washington and Adams, in the book entitled 'The Prospect before Us,' written by Colonel Callender, under the immediate patronage and pay of Mr. Jefferson; of which we have the evidence under his own hand, in his letters to Callender. For these libels Callender was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be fined and imprisoned. Mr. Jefferson soon after coming to the presidency, pardoned the culprit, and ordered the fine, which the Marshal had collected, to be restored to him! Another democratic printer, who had libelled a respectable federalist in Connecticut, of which the libeller was convicted in a court of justice, and punished, was (like the Aurora editor) selected for a military office, and appointed a captain of dragoons.

Most of the states in the union, if not all, had newspapers vending the same drugs, to poison the minds of the people; with what success, the nation too well knows, in the ascent of Jefferson and then of Madison to the chair of state and by the evils brought on our country under our administrations.

Certain it is, that Mr. Jefferson, acquiring with the presidency, an extensive patronage, used it to reward his zealous adherents, who had promoted his election; removing from office faithful men, the greater part of whom had been selected by Washington, in numerous cases to reward them for their revolutionary services, particularly in the army. A general removal, however, of all the federal officers, at one stroke, would, at that time, have shocked even democracy itself: Mr. Jefferson, therefore, turned them out by degrees: and in a few, very few instances, impatient as he was to provide for his followers, left death, more inexorable, more forbearing, to make room for them.

In this way, Mr. Jefferson obtained a host of flatterers, eulogists and advocates spread over all parts of the United States, and interested to exaggerate his merits where he simply performed his duty, and to extenuate or conceal, excuse or justify, his faults and evil deeds. And to extend his sphere of influence, apostasy from correct principles was sure of a reward. Thus public offices have operated as bribes, to secure the devotion of fellow-laborers in the work of deception, and to make proselytes of others whose virtue was not firm enough to resist the temptation. And the same arts and devices to retain, as originally to acquire power, being diligently practised, the public delusion has been continued; and the eye and ears of multitudes remain shut against conviction—Yet it is their interest to know the truth; and many pens and voices have been employed to display and proclaim it—and not wholly in vain. Others are to be made sensible of their errors only by suffering; and happy will it be for them and the country, if sufferings, severe sufferings, lead them to enquire "What is the cause, who is the author of them?"

Were the question put to me, I should answer in the words of an intelligent & experienced democratic senator of the United States, just at the close of Mr. Jefferson's eight years administration—

"Mr. Jefferson has been the cause of all the calamities which afflict our country."

This declaration was made to me in the Senate Chamber.

Here an honest citizen, in the simplicity of his heart, would ask—“And did that Senator, with this knowledge and avowal, remain a democrat, and continue, for a series of years, to support that very administration which has produced these calamities?” Yes; and hereby maintained his own popularity at home!

I have formerly published an observation of this kind—That the misrepresentations, false notions, and unfounded prejudices, successfully propagated to subvert the federal administration, had been so strongly inculcated and impressed on the majority of the people, that they were not now to be contradicted and eradicated by their leaders, who could not attempt it without hazarding their popularity, and consequently the loss of their offices or public stations: therefore the delusion remained and continued to be cherished, although at the expense of the best interests, and at the hazard of the safety and liberty of our country—as, for the same cause, its peace has since been sacrificed. Take, for an illustration, a recent example of talents and acquirements in the last Congress.

As such is stated in a letter from a member highly respectable for his document and integrity, dated February 11, 1812, containing the following passage: There entered into some conversation with "us" on the smallness of the object which we should calculate to obtain by a successful war with Great Britain, and upon the very equivocal proofs which were before the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. He assented; but added, "this government is got into a deplorable situation—how can they be extricated?" and (says he) "had I been a member of Congress, with the views of our foreign relations which I have now, I should have cut off my right hand sooner than have voted for those measures which have brought us into our present situation." But his popularity depended on his supporting the system of measures he thus forcibly condemned; and therefore he did support them.

The same war member, early in the late session of Congress, accosted another member in this manner—“You must not take it amiss, if in the course of the session I abuse you in a speech to the house: for, next to Pickering, you are the most obnoxious to the republicans, of any man in the United States: and having a competitor for a seat in Congress, in my district, I shall abuse you abominably to satisfy my constituents that I am a zealous republican!”—

Here we have the concurring testimony of another democratic member of Congress, that the "deplorable situation" of the government and the country, was produced by the system of measures formed by Jefferson (for Congress almost implicitly adopted his plans) and persevered in by his successor Madison in the management of our foreign relations;—that is, chiefly of our affairs with Great Britain and France. Of the general prosperity of the United States when Mr. Jefferson entered on his presidency, we have his own public testimony—that they were then "in the full tide of successful experiment:" Now, we unfortunately know, they are at dead low water.

TIMOTHY PICKERING.

April 16, 1813.