South Branch Intelligencer

MR. LEIGH.

The Van Buren prints are making themselves very busy in reference to the course of this gentleman. What will Mr. Leigh do? says one. What will Mr. Leigh do? is echoed back again. These gentlemen are so impatient to make arrangements for filling Mr. Leigh's place, that they overstep the limits of decency in their anxiety. If we may be allowed to speak from our knowledge of Mr. Leigh's character, we will say that he will do whatever a high-souled and genuine Virginian ought to do. Every one knows he cares nothing about office--it is an absolute sacrifice to him to continue in it. No mere place can give him importance, or add to the true lustre of his character. But Mr. Leigh knows too well what is due to himself-what is due to his friends--what is due to the great principles of civil liberty~to suffer himself to be driven from his post by political harpies, until it is clearly demonstrated, that he will not be allowed to maintain those principles for which Virginia has always contended. Do these "Spoils" loving gentlemen expect Mr. Leigh to surrender his place into their hands, while they are laboring under the heat and thirst of desire for it? Do they expect him to plead guilty to their infamous calumnies upon him-and go out with the stigma of Bankism, &c., stamped upon his forehead?--Do they expect him to yield to the odium of their false issues, and retire with the acknowledgment that he is not true to the principles of Virginia? In what particular does he differ with Virginia? In what instance has he failed to maintain her doctrines, and gallantly defend her honor?

Let the Legislature instruct him to oppose the present Bank, or any other National Bank, and he can obey in perfect accordance with his own sentiments and those of the State. Let him be instructed to oppose appropriations to Internal Improvement by Congress, & he obeys with perfect consistency. Let them instruct him to oppose a Tariff for protection, and he can obey readily and conscientiously. Let him be instructed upon any one of the great constitutional questions upon which Virginia has based her action, and he can represent her truly, faithfully, ably.-- But when he is instructed to surrender all these--to debase himself and the noble Old Dominion, for whose glory and prosperity he has labored so faithfully, then he cannot obey. When he shall be instructed to make her a tributary to a set of jugglers and knaves, to bow her neck to Martin Van Buren's yoke; to prostrate her principles at the footstool of a despot; to give an indiscriminate and undistinguishing support to all the measures of a reckless Administration; to go for men instead of principles-then, the hungry pack may get his place, to gorge the appetite of some unprincipled cormorant. Not until all this shall have been done, can "the party" be gratified-not until they have so far degraded themselves, and their State, as to direct him to vote for Benton's expunging resolution, need they fix their hearts upon his seat.

Mr. Leigh, though he personally dislikes public office, and though compelled to make sacrifices in retaining it, cannot resign, until the contingencies we have mentioned shall have happened. He cannot give up the bulwarks of liberty to the Goths and Vandals. without a struggle. It is not in character with him to desert the post of duty, because it is the post of danger. Mr. Rives and Mr. Stevenson must, if they are so keen for place, look to other sources-take whatever King Andrew may offer them in the meanwhile, for the sovereignty of Virginia is not yet ready for surrender to them. He who was not deemed worthy to be placed above R. M. Johnson, cannot have such imposing claims to Mr. Leigh's seat; and the man who could basely truckle to the dictates of the miscalled National Convention, and agree to recommend Johnson to the people of Virginia, in opposition to the feelings of his colleagues, cannot be entrusted with honors from Virginia, until she becomes vile, prostituted, base and unmindful of her ancient renown and her hitherto spotless reputation-Compiler.