Canton Herald

FOR THE CANTON HERALD.
THE "ANTIDOTE AND THE POISON."

Messrs. Editors: Of all the systems of political medicines—of all antidotes and nostrums ever applied to the disease of a body politic, that of Mr. Marshall, as proposed to be applied to our poor disordered State, seems to be the greatest panacea, and one which must prove entirely efficacious. He suggests, in his late circular to the voters of Madison county, that an "intended antidote for the disease of the country" was proposed at the last session of our Legislature; but that it is entirely insufficient—that it "contains a poison within itself, which if taken must inevitably produce death." And here, gentlemen, he has shown a political foresight scarcely credible, and one which should at least entitle him to the appellation of a political seer. The ten per cent. damage is the poison that renders the "intended antidote" so deadly to the body politic. It is true, this antidote has been applied in numerous instances, as the records in our Clerk's office will verify; and we do not yet perceive the destructive effects of the "poison." Still its minute operations and secret windings have been pointed out to us, and we should "sin against reason" were we not to heed the warning. Mr. Marshall pledges himself, if elected, to eradicate this foul poison; "to prune the law of this obnoxious feature, the ten per cent damage." And shall we not, therefore, support him? What will be the result of such a measure? Why, when we are sued, by giving a small douceur to our lawyer, after delaying the judgment several terms, we can hang our cases up in the High Court of Errors and Appeals, there to remain for years, while we can attend to our business, unmolested by the disagreeable duns of creditors; and in the end (if it suits our convenience) we can pay the debt and interest, with some trifling cost, and a small fee, as I said before, to the lawyer. But some may object that such a law would operate partially upon the community—that those merchants and planters who are indebted in New Orleans and the North, would be invariably brought into the United States Circuit Court to answer to their claims; and hence they could not then obtain this facility of appeal without any damage or expense upon the affirmance of judgment. This objection, however, is easily answered. Those men who owe such heavy foreign debts must be "trading on borrowed capital," and Gen. Jackson has emphatically declared what must and ought to be their fate. Let us then, who have confined our operations within our own State, boldly and at once assert our independence, and say to our creditors that we will pay our debts when convenient, and not before.

A VOTER.