Virginia Argus

ANSWER

Of the General Assembly of Vermont to the Governor's Speech.

SIR,

We have heard your excellency's patriotic address with much satisfaction. We most sincerely wish, that the just and generous feelings, by which you are actuated, may not only pervade the legislature, but every other branch of the government. We are properly impressed with the weighty trust of appointing the public functionaries. In our execution of that duty, we shall endeavor to adhere to those maxims of propriety which you have so forcibly inculcated in the beautiful language of elegant simplicity. We with you, sir, most sincerely lament the progress of party spirit. True it is, and with sorrow do we acknowledge that the moderate, the wise, the prudent WASHINGTON, with all his great and good qualities, did not escape from the tongue of slander.--Endeavors also have been made, at no very distant period, to envelope in a cloud of black detraction, those patriotic exertions of an ADAMS, so highly auspicious, and evidently serviceable at an early period of our revolution, in an hour of extreme weakness, before even we had arrived at the years of political manhood.- But the animadversions on the administration of our present chief magistrate--our mild, our serene, our benevolent JEFFERSON, have been clothed in language charged with peculiar and unprecedented venom. The purity of his motives, the applause he receives from the great majority of his fellow-citizens, must however sweeten his injured feelings, and create in his heart a generous and beneficent compassion for his revilers. Whilst we do not all embrace the same political sentiment, we unanimously deplore: this increasing rage of party spirit--this vehement zeal, which tends to inflame the passions, and misguide the judgment. We unite in our wishes, that every error in government may be strictly watched and publicly analysed, not in the indecorous phrases of contumelious slander, but in that pure and chaste language, by which, and which alone, the page of argument can be adorned or conviction enforced on the honest, intelligent and inquisitive mind. We are sensible that our interest and safety, as a state, are involved in our federal connexion with our sister states, and we will unite most cordially, in every measure which tends to strengthen the union and augment the dignity of the United States. In the new arrangement necessary to be made respecting the choice of representatives to Congress, that strict regard shall be paid to the interest and convenience of the electors which the importance of the subject requires, We with heartfelt pleasure, sir, embrace this opportunity of assuring you that we view your unremitted attention to the discipline of our brave and meritorious militia, as a strong additional proof of that paternal solicitous care, with which you have constantly watched over the interests of this state. The propriety of extending the public patronage, in providing them with fire arms and field artillery, as far as circumstances will permit, shall be made the subject of early discussion. The flourishing state of our schools and colleges cannot fail of high satisfaction to the legislators of a people, who maintain as a primary article of their political creed, that science and virtue are the corner stones of a republican government. We shall be ready to receive any other communication from your excellency which you may be pleased to lay before us, hoping that all our public acts may conduce to the best interests of the state, and that you may receive all that satisfaction in your high office, which does result, and can alone result from the consciousness of being the principal laborer for the common good.