Alexandria Gazette

COMMUNICATIONS.

I have been a great deal surprised at certain communications, lately published in your paper, in relation to removals from office. I have remarked that in those of them which, from their character, I must conclude, proceeded from persons directly interested in arguing against removals, in particular cases, there is a singular forgetfulness of the rule which governed the last and present Administrations, in their action upon cases of this description. I put the question to the present incumbents of offices under the General Government. Did you ever, during the twelve years last past, think of blaming the Executive for removing from office persons, against whom nothing was ever alleged in the way of incompetency, neglect, misconduct, or malfeasance? I ask, further—Do you not know that many such removals have been made?— And again I ask—Do not many of you now hold offices, from which worthy and efficient persons were ejected, to make room for you? These questions, I know, your consciences will answer in the same way that mine would. Then, what do such arguments, as we have lately read in the communications referred to, deserve? I answer—indignation or contempt—nothing more.

I grant you, my very disinterested and uneasy friends, that General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren were highly culpable in making most of their removals, for they were made without cause, and merely to make room for hungry partisans. And I must go a step further, and say that they were very wrong to remove certain worthy persons from the offices, the duties of which they faithfully discharged, to make room for you who now fill them. What say you to this, good sirs? Why forsooth, General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren had the power to make such removals, and doubtless had cause for doing so, though we confess, we who knew all about the particular cases, could never find it out; and certainly it did not become us who were appointed in their places to be too scrutinizing. It was a question of conscience for those who exercised the power. Very good—very true. Pray satisfy yourselves with the same mode of reasoning when "even-handed justice commends the poisoned chalice to your own lips." Pray let us hear no prating about your "being so clear in your offices;" no pleadings and cursings about "the deep damnation of your taking off." Your case, as "A Mercy Man" says, is truly in a nutshell!.

Moreover, what have you to say, gentlemen, who are utterly incompetent to the discharge of the duties of your offices, and who are appointed to them in the blind and savage fury for "rewarding friends and punishing enemies," without regard to your fitness?— And you, sirs, who have been making yourselves so officious in doing the dirty electioneering of your masters: denouncing, informing, proscribing, corrupting—neglecting your duties, and "bringing the patronage of the Government into conflict with the freedom of elections:" O, nothing! But it's not right to proscribe men, in this free country, for their political opinions. I have done this, one will say, to recommend himself. And I have done that, will say another. I have not done this says one; and I have not done that, says another. I was appointed under such and such circumstances, pleads one; and I was appointed under such other circumstances, supplicates another. Such is the clamor of these poor creatures. O how patriotically they hang on! The darlings! And how disinterested some of them are, too! for I have heard of instances where they have most magnanimously offered, in order to divert attention from themselves, to sacrifice a brother sucker—some poor devil who merely confesses, and cries out, "have mercy upon me, a sinner," while they are endeavoring to show that they "are not such as other men."

Happy land, indeed, art thou, O Columbia! to be blest with such a band of patriots! But enough of these rambling remarks which I have jotted down just as they came uppermost. In conclusion, let me exhort these dear souls—these pure patriots—these Hampdens, Catos, Curtiuses, &c, &c.—to be aisy, and not to make such a fuss about their inevitable fate.

"stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once."

A PLAIN MAN.