The Caledonian

Hasn't a Custom House Officer a right to vote? asks a tory paper, in answer to some remark of ours in reference to the practice of Government office holders interfering with elections. Certainly he has a right to vote, and no one would deprive him of it. But we do, as a democrat, object to office holders, who receive salaries from Government, acting as Dictators in political matters, and spending their whole time in politics to the neglect of their official duties. They are the paid servants of that people whom they attempt to control. We hold with Senator Grundy, "that when an officer of Government is seen interfering in politics, he is thinking of his bread and butter, rather than the public good."

For illustration;—when we see a Custom House Officer, with a salary of $30 per month, rendering no possible equivalent for his salary, riding about the County, planning petty intrigues, and setting himself up as the dictator over the suffrages of the people—attending conventions—a Senatorial Convention, for instance—privately directing one of his tools to nominate himself for Chairman, and when the question arises how shall the nomination of Senators be made, there rises up another of his confidentials and moves that the nomination be made by committee appointed by the Chairman, the dictator—we see "the patronage of Government brought into conflict with the freedom of election," and the principles of democracy subverted by dictation. And to carry the illustration further—the committee nominated by the Chair, previously directed by the said Officer of Customs, to nominate certain persons for Senators, come into Convention and report the names of the said persons as candidates—we then see democracy supplanted by dictation, and also we have a picture of the late tory Senatorial Convention at Danville, and also a specimen of the management of the Caledonia County Dictator—alias, John, the wire-worker, and dictator general of the good people of Sutton.

Are the voters of Caledonia slaves, that the dictation of this office-holder should compel them to support men for office because it may further the selfish views of this trampler upon their rights? Is the liberty of the yeomanry of Caledonia so worthless that it should be sold and transferred to every body and any body, by a sinecure office holder?— Are they reduced to the beggarly alternative to vote for men nominated by the intrigue and management of one man, because he so orders them, to the exclusion of men the majority preferred? The election will tell whether the dictation of a Government office holder rules Caledonia County, or whether the people still love democracy and rule themselves.