Martinsburgh Gazette

From the Baltimore Morn. Chronicle.

We have often taken occasion to deplore that hungry and ferocious rapacity for office, that has designated so many of our countrymen: we have lamented it as leading to a moral debasement, to a dereliction of personal dignity: Perhaps our remarks have been considered as the results of a gloomy fancy, abundant in evil prognostics. Let us then come to fact and circumstance. The following is an extract from the speech of one of our candidates for the Presidency, Mr. Clay. on the bill to amend the several acts imposing duties on imports.

"I have been again and again shocked during this session. by instances of solicitations for places, before the vacancies existed. The pulse of incumbents who happen to be taken ill, is not marked with more anxiety by the attending physicians, than by those who desire to succeed them, though with very opposite feelings. Our old friend the faithful sentinel, who has stood so long at our door, and the gallantry of whose patriotism deserves to be noticed, because it was displayed when the virtue "was most rare and most wanted, on a memorable occasion, in this unfortunate city, become indisposed some weeks ago. The first intimation which I had of his dangerous illness. was by an application for his unvacated place. I hastened to assure myself of the extent of his danger, and was happy to find that the eagerness of succession, outstripped the progress of death."

What a shocking picture of the public morals is here presented: The hungry expectants for office are impatiently awaiting the last convulsive struggles of a dying man, and chiding the slow and tardy advances of the king of terrors.—Tell us, hungry sycophants, cormorants of office. is this done with an honest ambition to serve your country, and to render your names illustrious by the splendid services that you render. 'No! it is the grovelling wish of these political Lazaroni, to be fed, maintained, patronized and clothed—at the public expense. They ask for office, as a beggar asks for alms, and are by far the least meritorious characters of the two. Talk to us patriotism when we behold such men?—who ever thought of taking a chesnut burr for an eye stone. These men are qualified for any grovelling duty—meanness is their element, and almost makes a part of their physical conformation... When a candidate for the first office in the gift of a free people, states facts so shocking, so repulsive to humanity. so totally self debasing we are warranted in making these comments.

But we beg leave to protest against Mr. Clay's account of the cause of this wonderful moral phenomenon—the overflow of the learned professions.—This evil has its root much deeper in human nature; it results from that low standard of action adopted for such a length of time in this country—that politics is a game to be played for private and selfish advantage; office, nothing more than a means of filling empty pockets—patriotism, the loaded dice, and our country, the stake of the game. This will be called fancy, we presume. instead of fact; look then at the hideous deformity of the New York legislature. Candidates for office pledging themselves solemnly, previous to the election to restore to the people their electoral rights, and then with the same deliberate solemnity, violating their pledges in the face of heaven and earth. Is this fancy also, or rather, is not the loathsome fact recorded on the journals of that legislative body? Let the blushing genius of our country determine the question whether this be all falsehood or fact.