Gazette Of The United States, & Daily Advertiser

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Philadelphia to his friend in Baltimore.

"It affords me peculiar pleasure to hear that your state will probably give a unanimous vote at the ensuing election of president. Every day convinces me that the democrats are fostering plans which may terminate in the destruction of our happy government. Our infatuated governor, has resolved to make every effort to disarm the Federal party. It was some time ago supposed, that under the sanction of a proclamation, the citizens of Pennsylvania would be invited to give their votes; but from an apprehension that the vigilance of the U. S. militia would detect the procedure and defeat the return, a new scheme has been projected. It is confidently asserted, and generally believed, that an attempt will be made to bribe a portion of our senate. "It is said Mr. McKean and his auxiliaries calculate on reducing the number of federal senators at our approaching election, and that three of the present members, who are known to be federal, are to be complimented with public appointment. By this diabolical plan they hope to succeed in the choice of Mr. Jefferson." I am well acquainted with some of our federal senators and I know that they will shrink from the touch of corruption. They will treat the attempt with indignity, and move in the regular orbit of duty. No allurements will induce them to quit their posts in the hour of danger. Such measures ought to awaken honest man from his slumbers, and give action to the energies of patriotism. If Mr. Jefferson is to receive promotion from such means of corruption, it is a just conclusion that his administration will conform to the polluted principles which gave birth to his elevation.

I am astonished to find that any person should object to the mode of choosing by the legislature. There certainly is every reason why Maryland should exercise that system of election for the present. I am told that the question has been amply discussed at some of your meetings. It is said that even the apparatus has been resorted to in order to prove the danger of depriving the people of their rights. So idle a story may serve to delude the ignorant, but persons of reflection must see that the clamor is made up of fables, and has no real existence. If the people are so very tenacious of their rights, I am surprised that they delegate them on any occasion. If they cannot confide the power to the general assembly they ought not to trust electors. In either case they are liable to the possibility of deception. But let us increase this new fangled jealousy a step farther; and we ought not to repose in any set of men the power of passing laws, or the legislature may act corruptly, and the liberties of the citizens may be infringed.

"I am also told that your Democratic patriots pretend to censure Virginia for altering her mode of election to favor a particular candidate. This is only an additional colouring to the dark features that compose their characters. When they make such observations, they must suppose us as deficient in discernment, as they are in candor. Do we not know that Virginia has passed the law and that your state has not yet acted on the object. Is there any man of the jacobin party, who would reject the seven votes, which they have added to Mr. Jefferson's list in Virginia? If the fair balance of election should be restored by Maryland, and our senators should preserve their integrity, we may indulge the pleasing expectation that the gloomy eclipse will fall like Lucifer, never to rise again."