Freeman's Chronicle

From the Farmer's Watch-Tower.

TO THE ELECTORS OF THE 5th.
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.

Fellow citizens--

We see by the public papers a
great number offering themselves as
representatives to congress in this
district. A schedule of their names
will be omitted, as it would swell this
communication beyond its proper
bounds. I am, gentlemen, personally
acquainted with many of these candidates,
and think them good and worthy
citizens; but among them all, General
Joseph Foos, of Franklin county seems
to me the best calculated to promote
our common interest and the best entitled
to our suffrages. Devoted as
his life has been to the public, his experience
in the several departments
of government and his knowledge of
human concerns must be wide and extensive.
The confidence, which his
fellow-citizens first discovered in his
favor, was his appointment to fill the
office of associate judge of the county
of Franklin. On the bench, where
he sat for five successive years, a penetration
and correct notion of legal
right were discovered in his opinions
and decisions very uncommon for a
man who had not devoted himself
particularly to the science of law. It
is universally acknowledged that he
discharged the duties of this important
and difficult station with honesty and
integrity and without partiality or favor.

Gen. Foos has for many years
been a senator and far more, engaged
in the military department. We
should view him in the senate, and
see whether he has there displayed
those republican principles which are
the support of our happy constitution;
whether he has undeviatingly pursued
a correct line of conduct in this public
and highly responsible office; whether
he has discharged all the duties incumbent
upon him as the representative
of a portion of our state; & whether
he has exercised his talents and
devoted his attention to the interest
of his constituents: If he has done
all this, and even his enemies dare
not deny the fact, it is the most convincing
proof possible, that he will be
equally faithful to the district, that he
will discharge, in the same manner,
the highly important duties of a representative
in the great council of the
nation.

A majority of the counties composing
our district are obviously in one
interest. If the old maxim be true
that "self interest is the first law of
nature" we shall grossly violate the
adage by a disunion at the approaching
election. There are many circumstances
which should induce us to
join hands in friendship and unite our
exertions in favor of a single candidate.
The most obvious is the great
United States road which must, in the
nature of things, pass through some
part of our district. The course it
will take through the district will depend,
in a considerable degree, on the
county from which the member is
chosen. This is too clear to need explanation. Franklin lies in a direct line with many other counties through which the state road will pass; or it will be left, in common with others, considerably to the south. This circumstance alone could be sufficient inducement for me, independent of every other consideration, to give my suffrage for General Foos. But I venture the opinion that there is not one of the candidates who offers, more extensively acquainted, than General Foos, with our local interest and the interests of the different classes of our citizens. When the melancholy intelligence of the disgraceful surrender of Hull reached our county, he, with his usual activity and promptitude assembled and organised a brigade, and marched them to the assistance of our defenceless frontiers. His celerity of movement, on this occasion, was unquestionably a means of saving hundreds of innocent women and children from being cruelly butchered and bathed in their own gore by a merciless and savage foe. His exertions to supply the numerous wants of the troops under his command, who left their families and their homes unprovided with camp equipage and many of them even without a change of clothing, are deserving of our highest praise and a proof of his sensibility as well as his patriotism.

To the writer of this, General Foos is well known in his private life. He is social and familiar and not ashamed to take by the hand in friendship an honest and industrious farmer or mechanic. His moral character is without blemish. Who, fellow-citizens, shall we prefer to him, being thus tried in the balance and not found wanting? Classic elegance or splendid periods cannot reasonably be expected from me who am a man with only sufficient learning to transact the ordinary business of life, but to communicate the truth to be understood, thank God, neither requires vast genius nor the tinsel of ornaments of language.

A FARMER.