Kentucky Gazette

KENTUCKY ELECTION.

On Wednesday last, the annual election in this state, for members of the house of representatives, and one-fourth of the state senators, terminated. We beg leave to remind our republican friends in the other states, that the question which rendered this election unusually interesting, was a question upon the correct decision of which depended the preservation of one of the most precious rights of a free people, the inestimable right of suffrage: it was, whether the people of Kentucky should be governed, for three or four years to come, by an executive of their own choice, or be ruled by a man, who had accidentally become, by the decease of the late Governor Madison, our acting chief magistrate; but who, according to a sound construction of the constitution, should have continued in power only until the next annual election after a dispensation of Providence had elevated him to the executive chair? The last legislature of Kentucky, regardless of the rights of the people, and unmindful of the sacred fidelity which they owed to those rights, decided that Col. Slaughter, the lieutenant governor elect, should act as governor for the whole term for which the late executive was chosen: and the great body of the people, at the present election, resolved to try whether or not they were to submit to this state of things. The principal test, therefore, required of the candidates for the legislature, was a declaration whether, in case they should be chosen, they would support a law providing for the choice of a new governor and lieutenant governor at the next August election. Last Monday came on the tug of war, and Greek met Turk. The friends of a new election, and of the people's rights, brought out the best talents of the state; and on the north side of the Kentucky river, the people, by great majorities, have chosen men, whose abilities and standing generally would reflect honor on any section of the union. We have reason to believe, that the people on the south side of Green river have done themselves equal credit, in the selection of good men, and in the support of their rights. Most of the counties in the middle district of the state, have labored under the misfortune of apathy on the subject of a new election, for the want of a few active men to excite a thorough examination of the question. The people of that district are as republican in their sentiments, as the people of any other section of Kentucky; and we doubt not that a short time will find them as much alive to the maintenance of their rights. The federalists, with Mr. Pope as their chief, have, to a man, opposed a new election: they have had but two or three federal candidates; but they have run republicans opposed to a new election; and they have been, reluctantly, aided by the votes of some honest democrats, whom more mature reflection will, we hope, turn from the error of their ways, and bring back into the fold of democracy. Other pretended republicans, who perhaps sighed for a favorable opportunity to throw themselves into the arms of federalism, without danger to their popularity, have more actively supported the cause of aristocracy; but they must now be convinced that a crooked, dissembling policy, is generally a fatal policy. The people have discarded them: they want a governor of their own choice, and they will have one. The "wicked new election scheme" has spread like an electric spark: a flame has already arisen, which has consumed the popularity of the most powerful of the enemies of a new election: Mr. Mills, Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Marshall, and others, have been compelled to seek "dignified retirement:" to content themselves with "the dull pursuits of private life." These facts speak, as in a voice of thunder, to the senatorial adversaries of popular rights, and to the representatives who yet remain on that side of the question in the other house. The progress of the principle of a new election; the mighty torrent of public sentiment: the independent voice of republican Kentucky, cannot be resisted: they will bear down all opposition. We confess that nothing of the nature has ever gratified us so much, as the ardent devotion to principle, to the cause of liberty, which the people of our own, our native home, have so generally and so nobly displayed on the present occasion. In the language of an eminent son of Kentucky, "may the people forever regard those only as worthy of their confidence, who adhere inflexibly to their rights; and may the people confound those, who aim at power, for the sake of themselves only!"