Virginia Argus

At a very numerous and respectable meeting
of the Inhabitants, and Freeholders, of the
County of Orange, at their Court-House,
on the 24th of September; being court-
day, the following address was unani-
mously voted :

To JOHN DAWSON, Esq. Representative
in Congress, from the District of Orange,
Spottsylvania, Madison and Louisa.

SIR,

After an arduous and faithful attendance,
on the longest and most important session of
Congress, which the country has ever expe-
rienced, you have returned to the Body of
the People, to the bosom of your constitu-
ents. When, Sir, the important trust of a
Representative of the People was delegated
to you, it was with the firm persuasion that
you would watch over our interests, guard
our rights, and protect our Constitution.
With anxious solicitude have we regarded
your conduct, during the late trying session
of Congress, and with satisfaction do we de-
clare, that our hopes have not been frustra-
ted, nor our expectations disappointed. We
have seen you nobly supporting the rights of
your fellow-citizens; in every shape opposing
the aggrandizement of executive autho-
rity, and strenuous in advocating the cause
of unfortunate merit,--This conduct has en-
titled you to our esteem, and approbation,
and has excited the warmest emotions of
gratitude in our breasts. The principles,
Sir, upon which you have acted, though dif-
ferent from those of a majority of our Legis-
lature, are nevertheless dear to us, we esteem
them as Congenial with our own, and we
trust that they will finally triumph over all
opposition, and redound to our advantage.
The right of instructing their representatives,
is one of the noblest privileges of freemen,
and we trust that the expressions of our wish-
es, will be sufficient to call forth decided ex-
ertions for their fulfilment. It is our
desire that the principles which have hitherto
influenced your conduct, may still continue
to be the basis of your actions, and as you
have opposed the ALIEN and SEDITION
LAWS in their progress; so you will not
fail to use your utmost endeavours to obtain
their repeal. The first of these we consider
is a manifest encroachment on the powers
of the state governments, and the second by
levelling us of the privileges of investigating,
and freely speaking our opinions on public
men, and public measures, takes from avarice
and ambition one of their greatest restraints,
by freeing them from the dread of public
censure. The joint tendency of the laws, is
to subject every individual to the powerful
resentment of offended authority, while it
takes from the unhappy sufferer even the sad
privilege of venting his complaints. The
press, the safeguard of a free people, will no
longer be the protection of virtue, and the
scourge of vice, but will be rendered subser-
vient to the vices of a corrupt and ambitious
administration. The constitution which e-
cures to us the important blessings of Liber-
ty, Peace, and Happiness: is now but an
empty name, and the remembrance of it on-
ly serves to render our present prospects,
more gloomy and disastrous. The Execu-
tive part of our Government, armed on the
one hand with the dread of banishment, and
on the other with the terrors of imprison-
ment, will watch over our conduct with the
scrutinizing eye of despotism, and if we sigh
or murmur; the sigh is sedition, and the
murmur banishment.

That nice equilibrium between the differ-
ent departments of government, so essential-
ly necessary to the prosperity of the whole,
with regret we have seen destroyed, and with
astonishment have beheld the enormous ag-
grandizement of executive authority. We
hope, then Sir, that every nerve will be strain-
ed on your part to obtain the repeal of these,
and to oppose all other unconstitutional laws.
Thus Sir, you will be entitled to our esteem.
and approbation, while you secure to your-
self the suffrages of the people of this coun-
ty.

WILLIAM MOORE, Chairman.
JAMES TAYLOR, jun. Sec'ry.