Daily National Intelligencer

FROM THE BALTIMORE FEDERAL GAZETTE.

To the Editors of the National Intelligencer.

The affair of the Collector at Annapolis, alluded to in your paper of the 14th, seems to deserve our very serious consideration. Your subscriber has indulged in harsh epithets, which prove nothing but his warmth; and, as I wish to treat the subject dispassionately, I address these observations to you.

I am aware that there are some legal questions which might be made. Can goods, for instance, claimed for the United States, be taken out of the possession of a Collector, by any process of a state court? Can property be replevied which is already in custody of the law? How far does the seizure by a collector place goods in the custody of the law?

The legal points are, to my mind, perfectly immaterial to the great question—Whether the collector was justified in resisting, at the point of the bayonet, by means of regular troops called in for the purpose, the legal process of a state court, in the hands of the sheriff of the county, and within his undoubted jurisdiction?

The writ of a county court, as far as it is intended to have a legal operation, is all-powerful within the county; and a resistance to it is a resistance to the peace, government, and dignity of the state. On what grounds, then, did the collector resist the sheriff of Anne Arundel, proceeding, in discharge of his duty, to execute the state's writ? Because, as he alleged, the writ did not lie—the process was illegal. Here, then, is the gist of the whole affair. The sheriff maintains that it is legal—the collector that it is illegal; and the question is, whether the collector is bound to submit to the writ? or whether he should oppose it by application to the legal tribunals of the country? or whether he is at liberty, se ipso, at his own discretion, to pronounce the proceeding illegal, and call in a detachment of the regular army of the United States to resist its execution at every hazard?

The latter alternative was adopted by the collector. He resolved to resist the writ, the sheriff, and the posse comitatus, vi et armis. He sent to the garrison for an armed force—one or more officers accordingly marched with their men, in martial array, and bayonets fixed, and were placed across the wharf where part of the goods were lying. The sheriff appears with the posse; and, attempting to pass to serve the process on the goods, in the rear of the line, is stopped by the musket of a soldier, let down and presented at his breast.

The excitement amongst the citizens of Annapolis was very great; a number were for arming themselves, and executing the writ in defiance of the soldiery: Nor was it without considerable personal exertion on the part of gentlemen holding high judicial and executive offices under the state, that the tumult was prevented from becoming more serious and fatal.

It is here to be observed, (and it is melancholy that our party attachments should make the observation of some importance), that the sheriff and the persons principally engaged, have been altogether of the politics of the present administration of the general government.

Now, sirs, by what authority can a collector array an armed force against the sheriff of any county in the Union, proceeding to execute a duty enjoined on him by his oath of office, the law, and the constitution? Is it not manifest that the collector has here taken upon himself an awful responsibility? Had the sheriff have persevered, blood would have been spilt. The blood of American citizens, summoned by their own sheriff to aid him to execute the process of their courts of justice, would have been shed by an armed soldiery, marched from a neighboring garrison, upon the request of a mere collector of revenue. Upon whose head would have been the guilt of blood?

The jealousy of a free people is ever watchful of the military power put into the hands of their rulers. Whatever may be the decision of the courts of justice, it will be submitted to with ready cheerfulness; but, if, in every case of collision or doubt, the agents of the general government are to call out an armed force, depend upon it the sheriffs will soon learn to arm the power of the country. An armed force is at any rate a dangerous argument in a court for the trial of title. If a collector can, of his own mere motion, call in government troops to resist the civil process of a state, what is our situation? He is the sole judge of the propriety and necessity of the call; and once admit the principle, and he may summon his myrmidons—resist, attack, and render himself independent of either civil or criminal process. The principle is monstrous; and yet it does seem to have been acted on in the instance of the collector at Annapolis. The previous merits of the case have indeed faded away before the great point which has incidentally arisen. I think, therefore, that it is incumbent on the collector to shew cause of justification for having arrayed an armed force in open hostility against the state of Maryland, and the legal process of her courts: for having, under any pretences whatever, brought United States' troops from their garrison, for the express purpose of resisting, with the bayonet, and in the open streets of a peaceable town, the execution of a writ of the state, in the hands of the high sheriff of the county.

STRAFFORD.