The Enquirer

PENNSYLVANIA POLITICS.

No republican can contemplate the present phase of Pennsylvania politics without the sincerest regret. He must lament that at a time when so important a question is brought into view as a change in the constitution of the state, a new question should happen to occur, comparatively narrow in the range of its consequences, but eminently interesting to the feelings of the people: a question, which from concurrent causes is so capable of blending itself with the first, of exciting feelings & involving interests, that are most unfriendly to a fair discussion.

Does the constitution of Pennsylvania need any amendments? Is the qualified negative of the governor upon their laws, his excessive patronage of places, his continuance in office for three years, worthy of reprehension and change? Ought the judges to be made more dependant upon the legislature? Is the administration of justice less sure, cheap and expeditious, than the circumstances of the times will permit? Ought the duration of the senatorial appointment to be abridged? All these are most important questions. They relate to the fundamental principles of a republican government, and they are interesting to all as well as to a single state. They would admit & they at the same time demand a cool and unpassioned investigation. How much then ought we to lament that, this temper of mind should be interrupted and destroyed by a mere local & adventitious question. What has gov: M'Kean to do with the constitution of Pennsylvania? What mighty merit is there about him, that this constitution should in its most important principles stand or fall with him? What extraordinary benefits are to flow from his re-election, that are able to atone for the opposition which it has excited to some most important & serviceable amendments?

We lament in the second place, that these questions should not have merely enlisted on opposite sides, the Federalists and the Republicans, men who have hitherto formed very different views of the administration of our government; but that they should have divided even republicans themselves. We had hoped that so long as a Federal minority retained their mischievous schemes, with the slightest prospect of success, the republicans would have presented to them a firm and undivided phalanx, and if no more honourable motive could operate upon them that despair at least would induce all but their discontented leaders to desist from their machinations.

How much then, must we lament in the third place, that these hopes of a distant resurrection should receive the feeblest encouragement not only from the division of the republicans of Penn. but from the manner in which their discussion has been conducted. We grieve to behold that violent suspicion of political purity & that violent denunciation of opposite thinkers, which has gone forth among them. Clay and Dallas, Israel and Hiester, have alternately assailed their principles and their motives. One is pourtrayed as a party of malecontents: the other of federalists in the fictitious garb of republicanism.

Mean while the federal party are exulting at the disunion which already exists, and now and then throw in a new brand to exasperate the violence of the flame.

Lastly, we lament that any occasion should exist for the slightest combination between the federalists and the smallest fragment of the republican party. We lament more particularly that this combination should take place at a time when a strong animosity already exists between the two republican parties, and when a proportionate degree of attachment is likely to bind those together, who labour in a common cause.

We cannot suspect all the constitutionalists of Pennsylvania of federal or quizzical views: for many of them we believe to be animated by a conscientious conviction that the constitution and the governor ought to remain as they are: but they certainly stand in a most awful and perilous condition. Let them beware lest their present combination with the federal party should not gradually cool the fervour or extinguish the generous glow of republican principles. Federalism is not less subtle than it is malignant. Whatever it touches, it contaminates. Like the Philistine courtezan, it steals into the embraces of the unwary to contrive new plots for the accomplishment of their ruin. Let them even beware that an identity of views and sympathy of feelings do not bind them together like the members of the same family. Once connected with the federalists, it will be next to impossible to cut loose every bond which unites them, and to recover their original vigour.