Constitutional Whig

FOR THE WHIG.

To the National Republicans and Friends of Clay, in the State of Virginia:

Fellow National Republicans and Fellow-Citizens!!

You will pardon me, when I express surprise at your inactivity and supineness, amid the stirring events which are occurring around us. I have been waiting—anxiously waiting, for a movement in our State, commensurate with the deep interest and magnitude of the occasion, co-operative with our Sister states, in the grand scheme of a National Convention. It is time for the popular voice to be heard. The imminent peril of our dearest interests, should stimulate us to prompt and decisive action. The times require, and the cause of our country demands it.—National Republicans!! It is time to check the progress of misgovernment—to repel the wanton invasion of our sacred rights—to stay the daring hand of usurpation -and roll back the swelling tide of corruption, which threatens to overwhelm us.

Let it not be said, that Virginians were backward in the glorious cause of reform! They have never been slow to resent their country's wrongs—whether inflicted by the open attacks of a foreign foe, or the more covert, but not less dangerous invasion of a domestic enemy, under the pretext of acting by authority of the Constitution Bold, independent, and intelligent, they have ever been foremost to sound the alarm, when danger impended. Will they abate anything of their patriotic vigilance, or steadfast enterprise? Will they temporize, or remain luke-warm and indifferent, when the character of their institutions is at stake?—nay, when a breach has been already made in the walls, and the citadel of their liberties has been shaken to its foundation? Can they see, and seeing, tolerate the defacement of the fair form and graceful proportions of our unequalled political fabric, with the ruthless spirit of worse than Vandal barbarity?

National Republicans!! You may ask if this appeal to your public spirit and patriotism, is founded in truth & fact—or if it is the mere fervid working of a distempered imagination? Do you ask the question? Do you seriously enquire if there is any cause for these complaints, and this appeal? If so, let me ask you in turn, if you have been blind to the momentous events which have transpired within the last two years, and have passed in review before the astonished eyes of the freemen of this country? Have you not heard the loud complaints of those of our unfortunate fellow-citizens, who became the victims of the proscriptions, for opinion's sake, of the President and his Ministers? If you have not, you are among the number of those "who having eyes, see not—and having ears, hear not."

A minute history of those occurrences, would afford material for volumes; but for the honor of our country, should it survive the tremendous shock its stability has sustained—let us hope that the charity of our historians will permit them to glide into the shade of undisturbed oblivion. Shall I specify? Shall I detail? No! National Republicans!! You cannot be strangers to the events of such magnitude, as have filled all America with amazement!! You have seen all—you know all—you have seen the predictions of the opponents of this imbecile administration, more than verified; and the hopes and promises of its friends dashed and disappointed You have seen the Executive influence desecrated for the vilest purposes— you have seen the patronage of government flowing into the channels of robbery and corruption—You have seen the National Treasury- the people's money tributary to the President, in the bestowment of munificent largesses to his adherents and followers, in the way of offices and emoluments—You have seen the immense expenditure of the same people's money, in the capricious appointment and recall of public ministers consuls, and diplomatic agents. You have seen him arrogate the power, in the face of the Constitution, to commission agents to make treaties, without the knowledge, advice, or consent of the Senate—You have seen him despise and contemn that constitutional branch of the Federal Executive, by appointing the very men whom they have rejected. You have seen him disgrace the seat which Washington honored, by becoming an applicant to the Legislature of a State, for a nomination to the Presidency -and lending his power and his influence, and the use of his franking privilege, to solicit subscribers to a paper now established at the seat of Government, and avowedly supporting his re-election to the place he now disgracefully fills—you have seen his unrelenting persecution of all who have the independence to oppose his arbitrary sway; and his malignant hatred to the great American Statesman of the West, and all his friends—you have seen, and know all these things, and must, as freemen and Americans, entertain feelings of corresponding indignation and displeasure.

National Republicans!! Are these the only grounds of complaint? Recent disclosures exhibit to us the novel and unprecedented fact of a President of the U. S. descending to the shameful interference in the fire side relations, and prescribing the rules of social intercourse. A late member of the Cabinet declares that an attempt was made by Gen. Jackson to force him to comply with what was inconsistent with honor! In all that is despotic in power, base in corruption, malignant in revenge, unfaithful in office, weak and incompetent in the administration of public affairs, we see added the grossest violation of decency and morals. and the most reckless, mean, and officious intermeddling in the sacred privacies of domestic regulations. and authoritative dictation to the ministers of his Cabinet as to their company and society. Thus the people of this country, through their representation in their Chief Magistrate, become a party to a disgraceful private family feud, and appear before the world in the unenviable office of legitimating the depraved propensities of [text cuts off]
the worst passions, of controuling the privilege of one's selecting his associates, and of sanctioning the open violation of those tender and delicate relations formed at an altar, whose hallowed rites are celebrated in the face of man and under the benignant and auspicious smile of Heaven.

An administration whose character is thus marked by every act that can disgrace our country, is no longer worthy the support of a free and enlightened People.

Let us rouse from our present lethargy! Let us break the spell of enchantment by which our energies are bound. Let us move in concert and unanimity, and by the favour of Heaven all difficulties will vanish. Awake from your day dream of security and repose, and let us speak with trumpet-tongued indignation against the foul misrule of our governors.

At so important a crisis, silence is approbation, and inactivity self enslavement. Already our National Republican fellow citizens of other States are in active motion in the field. New York—glorious New York—has just shed upon us the bright lustre of her example. Shall we be behind her in zeal?

Shall we be the last to unite in these patriotic efforts to rescue our country from impotent and unskilful hands, and to vindicate her character from the contempt and degradation which the moral and political standing of our Administration has brought upon us? Insult has been added to injury. But the other day a friend of President Jackson, high in his confidence, and late an incumbent of a responsible station near his person, declared his belief that if General Jackson was to cut off the ears of half the citizens of Washington, they would support his re-election! Can we tamely submit to such contumelies and humiliating indignities? Are we serfs, menials, slaves, to this our Lord paramount?

Shall it for shame, be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in time to come? That we, the freemen of these United States, in the infancy of our existence, bowed in submission to a tyrannical controul? Shall we quietly see our national glories tarnished, and the Eagle of our Liberties ingloriously unfurled? No, National Republicans,

Time yet serves, wherein we may redeem Our banished honors, and restore ourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again.

I call upon you, therefore, in the name of patriotism—in the name of our injured and insulted country—in the name of our dearest rights violated, and in the name of that freedom which our ancestors, with far less aggravated cause, won from our transatlantic oppressors, and transmitted to us—and which we hope to bequeath to our children—to resist the lawless rule of this Administration! Let us lose no time in calling primary assemblies of the People in the different counties, to elect Delegates to meet in Richmond to choose Representatives to the National Republican Convention to be held in Baltimore next December. Let no discouragement prevent. I know that the opinion prevails that the number of Mr. Clay's friends constitute a minority of the freeholders of the State. It may be so. But let not those few, that minority, yield up their rights. Their stake in the Government is as great and valuable as that of the majority. Nothing certainly can be known of the strength of our party until a trial is made, and what time so propitious, what occasion so necessitous for a trial, as the present? Suppose we number but fifty friends—let those fifty be heard. But I feel confident that thousands of our fellow citizens of the Old Dominion will rally to the standard of Clay, Liberty, Union and the Constitution. The weight of character—talents, and numbers, is with us in many of our sister States. The watch word of Clay is re-echoed in delightful unison, and sounds along the plains, from State to State in unbroken euphony. And under the banner—inscribed Liberty, Union and the Constitution, and now floating in graceful beauty to the breeze, are gathering the people, led on by the wise, the great and patriotic of our Land.

A FRIEND TO HIS COUNTRY.