The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

FOR THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.

Mr. SMITH,

I feel indignant and humiliated at the degeneracy of the press. I adore its liberty, but I detest its licentiousness. To the former freemen are indebted for their rights; and the obligation of gratitude should never be forgotten. But while the public sentiment consecrates its virtues, shall its vices be countenanced, palliated, and supported? Are my countrymen prepared with undiscriminating judgment to applaud no less its meanest vulgarity than its noblest effusions?

Shall the lofty flights of genius, the clear inductions of science, the philosophic language of forbearance, share no better fate than stupid invective, and indecent calumny? Now is the time to decide the question. Disappointed ambition talks abroad. It insults all that is virtuous, wise, or honorable in the eyes of men. Regardless of truth, its calumny is ceaseless as its aspersions are gross. The discussion of principle is abandoned for the attack of men, not only in their public, but in their private character.

People of America! can you, do you, approve these horrid exhibitions of depravity?

If you do not—and I trust you are too honest to countenance such guilt—unite with me in consigning to oblivion, by treating with contempt, these base traducers of character, and disturbers of peace. Unite with me, disdaining to notice their despicable slanders, in considering those great principles and important measures on which the happiness and the duration of states depend. The contemplation will elevate us above the petty warfare that rages below, and enable us to view, with dispassionate minds, the political scene that lies before us.

Whatever may be the uproar of faction, however troublesome the ceaseless buzz of disappointed office hunters, however noisily the discontents of ungratified ambition, it is from great principles and great measures that effects of corresponding magnitude and interest always follow. Those principles rarely excite the passions of individuals, and still more rarely disturb the tranquility of empires, but in the energies of silence, like the mighty works of nature, they create whatever administers to happiness, or secures its enjoyment. Compared with these principles and these measures, what are the petty slanders of corrupt or ignorant hirelings? Slanders, which a freeman should blush to countenance.

Let, then, calumny be abandoned to the infamy it courts, and let it be paralyzed by a consciousness of its insignificance. No one will infer from these remarks that it is my wish to check the freest discussion of public measures. Asserting this right myself, I appeal to my God for the sincerity of my wish that it may to every citizen be immortal. On its maintenance, in all its energies, and sometimes terrors, depends our political salvation. This is the pilot that has so far carried us in safety through the storm, and it is the pilot who must carry us, if such be our fortunate lot, through many a storm that ambition will hereafter raise. Let then the assertion of this right be maintained with a giant's strength; but let it also be directed by a spirit of wisdom. Let us contemplate it as too sacred to prostitute to every personal pique or personal prejudice. Let it be exercised on occasions worthy of its energies.

This is my object. In my subsequent remarks I shall trace, with a bold hand, the measures of the present administration, and the principles they avow; submitting my remarks to the award of the people.

CATO.