Phenix Gazette

From the Ohio State Journal.

THE VOTE OF OHIO.

It appears by the official returns of the election held in this State on the 31st ult. which will be found in another column, that the Jackson Ticket has prevailed by a majority of 4,440 out of 131,052 votes. That this result, which was, we believe, wholly unexpected by the friends of the Administration, as well as by many of the most intelligent Jacksonians in Ohio, will much surprise our friends at a distance, cannot admit of a doubt. By the almost universal admission of both parties, this State had heretofore been considered nearly as certain for Mr. Adams as his own native Massachusetts; the loss of its vote—which, in its consequences, almost necessarily involves that of the Presidency itself for the next four years—will, therefore, give rise to much speculation.—To resort to the ordinary refuge of the unsuccessful, by offering sundry good and valid excuses for our defeat, we shall not however attempt. We are now satisfied that a majority of our fellow citizens actually prefer Gen. Jackson to the present incumbent; and being so satisfied, we shall not pretend—however much we may deplore the infatuation which has determined their choice—to deny the fact. To account in some degree for the delusion under which we have labored in this respect, may however, under existing circumstances, be a duty which we owe to ourselves and to our friends; and we shall therefore attempt it in as few words as possible.

We shall premise our observations by the remark, that we do not believe that the friends of the existing Administration in this State have heretofore knowingly and designedly overrated their strength, for the purpose of deception. We can at least speak for ourselves, and aver, that, although the result has shown a lamentable error in our calculations; yet that, at the time they were made, they were really believed to be strictly and literally correct. The truth is, we have unwittingly deceived ourselves; and, as a matter of course, deceived others also. We never had calculated that the vote of Ohio, at the late election, would, under any circumstances, exceed 100,000—being double the number given in 1824. Of these we made sure of receiving, if our friends turned out, between 55,000 and 60,000—leaving us as large a majority as we ever have claimed. Instead of this however, it now appears that, although we have polled three thousand votes more than we had calculated on, we are still left in the minority by upwards of four thousand.

To account for so great an error, and one into which many of our opponents in this State and elsewhere have fallen as well as ourselves, is perhaps, no easy task. The most obvious causes to which it may be attributed, appear to us, however to be the following:

There is perhaps, no fact better established than that a very large majority of the citizens of this State are in favor of that course of policy which goes by the name of the "American System." Their attachment to it has been manifested on so many occasions, that any attempt to prove it must appear wholly supererogatory. It is equally obvious, that while this policy has received the steady support and countenance of the existing Administration, it has on the other hand been assailed with the utmost zeal by many of the most active and influential leaders of the Jackson party; and that in many parts of the union, opposition to the tariff and internal improvements, and opposition to Mr. Adams, had become synonymous or convertible terms.

It was not, therefore, unreasonable to believe, that no intelligent friend of the System would give up a certainty for an uncertainty; & abandon an Administration, whose sentiments were unquestionably decidedly favorable, for the sake of a man whose views were wholly unknown, and around whom its opponents had almost unanimously rallied.

It may further be remarked, that a very large proportion of our leading men—of those, who had heretofore occupied the most prominent stations—Legislative, Military, and Judicial—as well as of the actual members of Congress & of the Assembly, of the Bench and of the Bar—were in favor of Mr. Adams. It was natural to believe that these gentlemen—many of whom had passed through a long course of public life, with a high character for political & moral integrity, and who had heretofore given the tone to public opinion—would be enabled to exercise sufficient influence with the people to keep in check the prevailing mania for Gen. Jackson, and to keep the State in the path of duty as well as of interest. The same observation applies, with equal force, to the periodical press.

With but few exceptions indeed, every one of our old established public journals; of those which had acquired a permanent support, and were not obliged to depend mainly on party excitement for a subsistence—had originally declared in favor of Mr. Adams. Of those in existence at the close of the late war, one only—it we are not greatly mistaken—had joined the Jackson standard; and we believe the efficient aid the General has derived from the press in Ohio, has proceeded more from the gratuitous distribution of newspapers and pamphlets amongst those who contribute nothing to its support, than to the ordinary influence of well-conducted journals—a circumstance not sufficiently attended to in our calculations.

To the operation of some of these causes, or perhaps of them all united, may, we think, be principally attributed the erroneous calculations of the friends of the Administration. But although it is evident that a majority of the voters in this State are actually in favor of Gen. Jackson it is not improbable that if the friends of Mr. Adams had presented his eminent qualifications to the consideration of the people with the same energy which their opponents have displayed in setting forth those of his competitor the result might have been widely different It is however to indulge unavailing regrets We shall therefore, close these remarks by expressing our sincere wish with regard to the probable consequences of Gen. Jackson's election as the event has shown us to have been with respect to the vote of this State.