The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

federal councils, that the people can no longer look up to them with respect and confidence. It is truly degrading to the feelings of every high minded American to observe the ignorance and baseness which have become so predominant in our legislative assembly, that such proceedings should have taken place. But such are the facts. and so shameful has been the conduct of the ministerialists. that men of sense of the same party, have lately felt the disgrace, and even Smith and Duane easily perceived, that an impartial deportment of the congressional proceedings, would cover their party with the contempt of the country.

The Editor of the National Intelligencer has too great a respect for himself, and his readers to descend to personal invective; his still greater respect for truth, however, constrains him to pass a few animadversions on the above paragraph; and he would claim the insertion of them in those federal prints which shall have inserted the paragraph which gave rise to them, did he not know, from the experience of what he has seen, that the expectation that such a claim will be attended to is as visionary as it is just.

The debates in the House of Representatives have been given in the National Intelligencer with the utmost impartiality; and it is believed that all the debates, of sufficient importance to merit a detailed statement, have been presented, except the first debate in relation to salaries. This was not given, because the Editor was prevented by indisposition from attending the house on the day on which it took place. The discussion, however, was renewed on a subsequent day; and the debate, which then took place, has been faithfully given.

There is no doubt that much conversation has been had in the House, in which the public are little interested, and of such a nature as it has seldom, if ever, been usual to publish. It is believed further, that during the present session there has been a greater portion of such conversation than at any antecedent session. This has principally arisen from the peculiar and unprecedented manner in which almost every measure of importance has been opposed. Instead of directing the several measures fairly on the ground of argument, incidental motions have been made in all cases but two; such as a motion to postpone generally, or to postpone one subject to take up another, or an attempt to incorporate extraneous matter, or a frequent call for information already before the house, whereby the discussion of the main question has been improperly precipitated. On all these incidental points, long conversation has ensued, chiefly confined, it is true, to the federal side of the house. As far as these discussions regarded principle they have been given, and the reader will find that of the mass of debate published in the National Intelligencer, nearly twice as much has been given on the federal as on the republican side. It is presumed that this will, to a candid mind, be a complete indication of impartiality.

Let the ample details given in the National Intelligencer be compared with the mutilated fragments, and gross caricatures, inserted in too many federal prints, and the unprejudiced mind will remain at no loss to form a decision on the relative impartiality of each.

The fact is, that the cause of republicanism, and as the Editor of the National Intelligencer firmly believes, the cause of those who at present administer the federal government, require nothing but truth to triumph. On the prevalence of truth they have both risen, and while they rest on that rock, they may bid defiance to the open force or secret stratagem of their opponents.