The Rhode Island Republican

PHILIP MARTIN,	of Providence.
EBENEZER BARNEY,	of Coventry.
SAMUEL VINSON,	of Newport.
THOMAS BUFFUM,	of Smithfield.
ROBERT HOPKINS,	of Foster.
WILLIAM PEARCE,	of Bristol.
BENJAMIN SMITH,	of North-Kingstown.
JOHN WATSON,	of South-Kingstown.
WM. WILBOUR, 2d,	of Little-Compton.
STEPHEN B. CORNELL,	of Portsmouth.
SAMUEL EDDY,	SECRETARY.

Republican Prox:

At a General Convention of Republican Delegates from the several towns in the State, holden at the State-House in East-Greenwich, on Thursday, the 20th of Feb. 1817, the following gentlemen were unanimously nominated to compose the Republican Prox for General Officers:

FOR GOVERNOR.
NEHEMIAH R. KNIGHT,

FOR LIEUT. GOVERNOR,
EDWARD WILLCox,
(of Charlestown.)

FOR SENATORS.
HENRY BOWEN, ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
THOMAS G. PITMAN, GENERAL-TREASURER.

The following address was prepared by the Committee appointed at the Newport County Convention holden at Portsmouth, on Friday, the 21st ult.

Republican Fellow-Citizens of the County of Newport,

WE beg to call your attention to the subject of the Election, on the third Wednesday in April next. That day will decide whether we are to be kept under the misrule of the Federalists for another year, or whether by a proper effort, we vindicate our just titles to a share in the government of the state. We believe and are persuaded that, by making such an effort, our success will be certain.

Permit us to recall to your minds some of the considerations which ought to animate our exertions. We have an interesting Country--interesting for what she is, and more so for what she promises to be, beyond any other that ever was possessed by a free people on this globe. We have a constitution of government for this country, admirably adjusted to our present wants, and still more admirably contrived to adapt itself to her growing emergencies-that, blending all the excellencies to be found in former models of free government, with perfections peculiar to itself, in a manner that enables it to derive strength from vast extension of territory, without impairing freedom, and of ruling large and distant communities of freemen, with the requisite authority to preserve order and tranquillity, without infringing a single right of a single individual. A constitution capable of expanding itself from ocean to ocean, and of affording shelter, and safety, and comfort to all beneath its wings. This constitution, the fruit of our national wisdom and virtues, and a happy combination of circumstances, guided by an overruling providence, so often and so signally displayed in our favor, ought to be dear to us as life, and cherished and defended as the best gift of heaven for the blessing of the world. Here Freedom is safe--from within, by the structure of our institutions-from without, by our growing greatness. Our empire is yet in its infancy: but what it bids fair to become from the natural growth and development of its faculties, is visible in its gigantic proportions, and its rapid strides towards its high destinies. Our children will live to see the day, when our empire will be able to stand against a world in arms, and if it pleases, give laws to that world. But this present happy internal condition, these brilliant prospects of the future, all depend on the preservation of the Union. Destroy this, or suffer this to be destroyed, then farewell, a long farewell, to all these visions of future national happiness and glory. The final effect would be to reduce us to a set of petty, wild, barbarous predatory states, like the barbarians on the southern shores of the Mediterranean-contemptible to the rest of the world, and formidable only to ourselves. The steps of the progression by which disunion would degrade us to this condition, must be obvious to every reflecting mind. The ambition of some of the states, and the fears of all, would beget the necessity of standing armies for aggression or defence. Standing armies would not fail to produce here in time, as they have done elsewhere in every instance, despotic governments. In the wreck of our fair liberties, would be involved all our other valuable interests. These would all perish in this state of things. The enjoyment of prosperity, and the means of acquiring it, would both be destroyed. Standing armies and despotic governments would eat up your substance. Internal commerce, there could be none amidst the selfish and conflicting systems of hostile states. Foreign commerce would be but a precarious commerce, held at the sufferance of other nations: and the resources to sustain even that, would soon be dried up. All the arts of peace, without the security of person and property, so essential to their growth and aliment, would languish and finally disappear. Add to this, all the horrid internal wars, and devastations, and revolutions, which would naturally grow out of this state of things. Disunion would indeed be opening Pandora's box of evils, and letting loose upon us, all the calamities that can well be imagined to befall a nation.

Yet this Union, so fertile in present blessings, so full of hopes of still greater, the federal party have been willing to exchange for disunion, so pregnant with evils of this horrid description. Have been willing, did we say!--they have actually attempted to achieve disunion--yes, to perpetrate this act of national suicide. At one time they were poising upon the point of separation; and only waiting the consummation of the calamities of our country, in some disastrous chance of the war, which they confidently expected and devoutly wished, to hoist the signal of revolution and dismemberment. The glorious triumphs of our country over her foreign enemy, by land and sea, smothered for a time this parricidal project. The enemy viewed our Union in its true light--in the light it has now been depicted to you. They saw in it the germ of a naval greatness, and they plotted its destruction. The federal party co-operated with the enemy in pursuit of the same object, and selected for its accomplishment, the very crisis when it was most likely to succeed, and in which it would have proved most fatal to the country. Let those who doubt the reality of a project of disunion, revert to the proceedings in Massachusetts, which led to the Hartford Convention to the publications in the federal newspapers--and the sermons from their pulpits, and they cannot fail to be satisfied. It is charitable to believe that many federalists did not concur in this sinful project of their leaders--that some who did, were not aware of the consequences that must attend its success. It is certain some distinguished individuals of that party avowed their abhorrence of the scheme, and openly denounced it, and were therefore denounced in turn by their party. But that there was such a project formed, abetted and attempted to be executed, no one ought to doubt. It is impossible to acquit the federal party in this state from a participation in this nefarious project-for they united with Massachusetts in their great measure of a Convention at Hartford, and it must have been with the same views.

The state sovereignties are limited in their spheres of duty, but are capable of being perverted and abused, to the imminent peril of our country and its all-important interests, as we have seen in the instance referred to, and as might be verified in other instances which have occurred in the short history of our experience. Let the people awaken to their dangers--let no one be again entrusted with the power of the state, who is capable of perverting and abusing the trust, in the manner we have witnessed and to which we have alluded. Suffer no one to wield their powers, but the known friends of the Union--those who feel it to be the first of duties, and the most sacred of obligations, to preserve it inviolate in all events, and at all hazards. Then you will be safe Such friends, such men are the candidates of the REPUBLICAN PROX. They have all titles to your confidence and support. Rally round them--carry them into office-their triumph will be yours and your country's. The right of suffrage is a power in the hands of the people, retained as a safeguard of their liberties and happiness. This great original power we are now called upon to exercise--it is important that we should exercise it on this occasion.

LET EVERY MAN BE AT HIS POST. AND
DO HIS DUTY.