Daily National Intelligencer

LANGDON CHEVES.

We are truly sorry to find, by expressions in the Charleston papers, that the independent statesman, accomplished scholar and genuine patriot, who now fills the Chair of the House of Representatives, proposes to decline a re-election to Congress. His departure from that body will be deeply lamented by all who truly know his worth; and we cannot but hope, unless, before the day of Election, his country shall repose in the lap of peace, that he will yield his personal interest and convenience yet a little while to the call of his country. We are aware of the sacrifices which every eminent professional man makes by accepting a seat in the National Legislature; but there are considerations, which no man knows better how to estimate than Mr. Cheves, which ought to outweigh those of a private nature.

We have no disposition improperly to scrutinize the motives of individual conduct; but we fear, from some expressions made use of by Mr. Cheves in his speech on the Loan bill, that he has suffered his feelings to be wounded by the contumelious treatment he has very unjustly experienced in certain of our public prints, on account of the course he took in advocating the law passed at the last session of the Twelfth Congress, or the remission of the merchants' bonds. The Editors of those prints differed from him as he differed from them. Their reproaches, however honestly though harshly bestowed by them, we venture to say, ought to have had no weight on the mind of a man conscious of the purity of his motives, and satisfied of the correctness of his conduct.

Whatever may be his motives for retiring from public service, the absence of such a man from the National Councils we should consider as a loss to the nation, and a misfortune to his immediate constituents. Under such impressions, we cannot but hope the intimations in the Charleston prints are unauthorized, and will prove to be incorrect.